UPDATE: Gunmen in drive-by shooting death of 8-year-old Warner Robins boy have pleaded guilty
.jpg "Earlier this year, Ricky Aubry McChargue, left, and Lenny Victor Gupton Jr. pleaded guilty to murder charges in the March 2022 shooting death of 8-year-old Jermarrion Pachino Cherry in Warner Robins.")
Two young men accused of killing an 8-year-old boy in a drive-by shooting last year in Warner Robins have since pleaded guilty to murder.
Their pleas in the high-profile slaying appear to have gone unreported by local news outlets. The pleas came this spring in Houston County Superior Court, about a year after a nighttime barrage on March 25, 2022, claimed the life of Jermarrion Pachino Cherry.
Cherry was shot once in the head while he was in a parked car at a home on Virginia Dare Drive, just south of Russell Parkway near Robins Air Force Base.
He was mortally wounded when two men in a passing automobile each opened fire. Prosecutors say the bullet that struck Cherry was not found and it could not be determined which man fired the fatal shot.
Houston sheriff’s investigators initially charged five people in the case, but murder charges against three were dismissed, and that trio’s cases have only recently been adjudicated.
The two who pleaded guilty to murder charges — Lenny Victor Gupton Jr., 20, and Ricky Aubry McChargue, 22, both of Warner Robins — were sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole.
Prosecutors say the shooting was prompted by a beef that McChargue had with someone he believed was at the home on Virginia Dare, near Booth and Wellborn roads, about half a mile west of the Museum of Aviation.
Gupton has been in the state prison in Savannah since mid-May, while McChargue has been at Telfair State Prison in McRae-Helena since mid-April.
Under Georgia law, both must serve a mandatory 30-year minimum term before they are eligible to be considered for parole.
Information from Telegraph archives was used in this report.
This story was originally published September 1, 2023 at 4:22 PM.