Gun used in Macon woman’s death in 2016 leads to conviction of Dekalb County man
A man convicted of killing a Macon woman in 2016 was sentenced to 25 years in prison for charges relating to the gun used in the crime, federal prosecutors said Thursday.
Sterling Bell, 35, of Clarkston, was sentenced on Oct. 1 in Atlanta after admitting over the summer that he lied to a federal firearms licensee and possessed a firearm while using a controlled substance. The gun referred to in this case was the same gun used in a shooting death that left Kendra Roberts, 27, of Macon dead in 2016, according to a news release Thursday from the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Northern District of Georgia.
She was found along a Macon highway, having suffered two shots to the face and one on the back of her head, according to a news release.
Bell was charged with murder around two years after Roberts’ death, after a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives special agent used the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network to connect his gun to the murder, according to a news release. Further investigation determined that he had purchased a Glock 9mm pistol weeks before the murder by lying to the seller about his daily drug use.
When he was charged and taken into custody in October 2018, the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office released the previous suspect, Roberts’ boyfriend, from custody, and his murder charge was exonerated, according to the news release.
Bell pleaded guilty in September 2022, which led Judge Howard Z. Simms to sentence him to 20 years in prison, federal prosecutors said. For his federal gun convictions, Bell received a 25-year prison sentence, followed by three years of supervised release. He pleaded guilty over the summer to one count of false statements to a federal firearms licensee and two counts of illegal possession of a firearm as an unlawful user of a controlled substance on July 23.
His sentences will run concurrently, according to court records. Bell will also be required to submit to a mental health and substance abuse treatment program.
“The diligence of a federal special agent solved a murder and prevented the conviction of an innocent man,” said U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia Theodore S. Hertzberg. “By using tools designed to test ballistics, the federal agent linked a gun seized from Bell to shell casings recovered from a murder scene two years earlier. The man initially charged with the murder was exonerated, and Bell was brought to justice.”
When Bell shot and killed Roberts on Aug. 7, 2016, he had refused to take medication prescribed to him for his schizophrenia diagnosis, the news release said.
If he doesn’t take medication, he will experience homicidal and suicidal ideations. Bell has also struggled with competency-related issues when not taking his medication, according to court records.
