Lajona Carr of Sampson County was found guilty by a jury on Tuesday of the first-degree murder of Jamaris Pridgen.
Superior Court Judge Augustus D. Willis IV sentenced Carr to life without the possibility of parole, plus a minimum of 17 months and a maximum of 30 months to run at the expiration of the life without parole sentence.
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On June 2, 2018, the stepfather of Jamaris Pridgen received an anonymous phone call that he was dead and his body was in Sampson County. The stepfather started looking for Pridgen and located his car in the woods on CC Road. That same day at about 9:30 a.m., he called 911.
Deputies from the Sampson County Sheriff’s Office responded to the scene and found the car. The district attorney said the car appeared to have been cleaned and smelled of gasoline. Investigators said there was blood in the driver’s area and in the trunk, but Pridgen was not in the car.
Authorities searched a property on Wilbur Pridgen Road, where witnesses had seen Carr after Pridgen's disappearance.
At about 9 p.m., Pridgen's family found his body in a shallow grave in the woods on Wilber Pridgen Road.
Carr was located on June 3, 2018, at an abandoned home on Trestle Road in Ivanhoe. Investigators found a 40-caliber handgun, a bag of Xanax and the victim’s watch. Carr was wearing the victim’s necklace.
On Tuesday, Carr was found guilty of first-degree murder. He was also found guilty of robbery with a firearm and possession of firearm by a felon.
Carr had been previously convicted of felonious restraint, assault inflicting serious bodily injury, possession of a firearm by a felon, possession of cocaine and injury to personal property.
Pridgen was 20 years old when he was murdered. He died of a gunshot wound to the chest.