Crime

Man doing life for killing ex and stabbing police dog charged in slaying at Macon prison

Randy Young in an undated prison mugshot.
Randy Young in an undated prison mugshot. Georgia Department of Corrections

An inmate at Central State Prison who is accused of killing a fellow inmate during a fight on Wednesday was serving a life sentence at the west Macon lockup for the 2018 shooting death of his ex-girlfriend in Clayton County, law enforcement officials said.

Randy Young, 34, was charged with murder Thursday in the stabbing death of Joshua Carl Haynes Lester, also 34, using a “homemade sharpened weapon,” an arrest warrant noted.

Further details were not mentioned and prison officials have been tight-lipped about particulars of Lester’s death.

Lester, of Dalton, had been serving part of a five-year sentence for an obstruction-of-law-enforcement conviction in north Georgia in 2017.

Young, meanwhile, has been housed at the Fulton Mill Road prison since last fall.

He is serving a life sentence, which according to published reports and prison records, stems from an August 2018 episode in which he shot his former girlfriend to death and, as Clayton County cops pursued him, stabbed and seriously wounded a police dog.

Joe Kovac Jr.
The Telegraph
Joe Kovac Jr. writes about local news and features for The Telegraph, with an eye for human-interest stories. Joe is a Warner Robins native and graduate of Warner Robins High. He joined the Telegraph in 1991 after graduating from the University of Georgia. As a Pulliam Fellowship recipient in 1991, Joe worked for the Indianapolis News. His stories have appeared in the Washington Post, the Seattle Times and Atlanta Magazine. He has been a Livingston Award finalist and won numerous Georgia Press Association and Georgia Associated Press awards.
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