HOGANSVILLE, Ga. — The story of a Georgia inmate trying to have sheriff’s deputy killed while behind bars has come to a close, with the inmate convicted.
The Coweta Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office announced Jonathan Taylor Lawrence was found guilty of conspiracy to commit malice murder of a sheriff’s deputy in Troup County while in jail in 2020 for unrelated charges.
Now 31, Lawrence will serve more than 30 years in prison for the murder plot and other charges from the conspiracy.
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DA John Cranford, Jr. wrote in a statement that the Troup County inmate was at trial for a week and was convicted on Aug. 25.
Originally, Lawrence was in custody due to an April 2020 traffic stop in Hogansville, where he was pulled over for a suspended registration, during which deputies found methamphetamine in a container inside the car.
At the time, Lawrence was already out on bond for an earlier arrest for possession of methamphetamine.
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While in jail and mid-COVID-19 pandemic, Lawrence was granted bond with “numerous conditions” for his April drug trafficking arrest, according to the DA’s office.
After his bond was revoked by the state, Lawrence “sent menacing and threatening messages to two people he believed were helping the state” to prove that he’d violated his bond agreement.
Back in jail by July 2020, a Troup County Sheriff’s Office drug investigator, who was a deputy during Lawrence’s April arrest, testified about the inmate’s bond violations.
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A month later, another inmate told deputies that Lawrence had put a hit out on the drug investigator and was soliciting having the investigator killed, according to the DA’s office.
“The evidence admitted at trial suggests Lawrence took this investigator’s involvement particularly personally because they lived in the same neighborhood in Troup County,” officials said.
The inmate who informed deputies of the murder plot was fit with a recording device and placed back in the cell he shared with Lawrence.
That same day, the DA’s office said Lawrence was captured on an audio recording discussing the plot and describing the layout of the investigator’s neighborhood, as well as logistics and tactics that could be used to best carry out the hit. Lawrence even drew a map of the neighborhood for the plan.
On Aug. 31, 2020, the inmate and Lawrence called an undercover deputy posing as a hitman. In the call, which was recorded, Lawrence gave contact information for an associate of his who could make a down payment to cover the cost of the hit on the investigator who had drawn Lawrence’s ire.
Now, Lawrence has been found guilty of conspiracy to commit malice murder, threatening a witness in an official proceeding, and trafficking meth. Lawrence was also charged with criminal attempt to commit malice murder and another count of threatening a witness but was acquitted of those two charges.
A Coweta County Superior Court Judge sentenced Lawrence to 35 years in prison.
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