Warner Robins man sentenced in stabbing, beating death of his 81-year-old grandmother
A man who last week was convicted of murder for smashing a ceramic Crock-pot dish over his grandmother’s head and stabbing her to death with a chef’s knife in Warner Robins nearly three years ago was sentenced Wednesday.
Houston County Superior Court Judge G.E. “Bo” Adams sentenced Jared Randall Carter to life in prison with the possibility of parole, a mandatory 30-year term before he is eligible to seek parole. He also faces an additional five-year prison term on a weapons charge.
Carter, 33, moved to Georgia from the New York City area in August 2017 to live with his grandma, Valearia Jean Mann.
The plan had been for the unemployed Carter to tend to the 81-year-old Mann while he looked for work and sought a fresh start down South. But by late spring 2018, according to testimony at Carter’s trial, Mann had confided to a friend, a social worker and a police detective that she was afraid of Carter.
In the days before her June 9, 2018, slaying inside her Willow Avenue home, Mann had said her grandson was verbally and emotionally abusive. She said she wanted Carter gone but asked the authorities to hold off before intervening. She said she would first try to persuade Carter to leave on his own.
On Friday, the last day of his trial, Carter testified and said he was not the killer.
A jury of nine women and three men deliberated for about two and a half hours before convicting him.
This story was originally published April 15, 2021 at 10:42 AM.