Gilmer Man Found Guilty of Capital Murder, gets Life Sentence

GILMER – A jury in Gilmer has found Jonathan Ray Shepherd guilty of capital murder. Since the district attorney was not seeking the death penalty, this means Shepherd will be sentenced to life in prison, without parole. Shepherd admitted to killing Cheyenne Green on September 26, 2013. She was shot in the Buckeye Stadium parking lot during a football game at Gilmer High School.

According to a probable cause affidavit, Shepherd met Green in the parking lot during halftime of a football game to give their then two-year-old child to her. A witness told police the couple was arguing about custody of the child. In video presented in court last week, Shepherd tells Gilmer Police Department Captain Ron Benge he got in Green’s car with their toddler son in the back seat, pointed a gun at her, and told her to drive the car. When Green got out of the car to flee, Shepherd said in the video, he fired the gun at her. He then got out of the car and walked around where he found her on the ground, he said. “I remember she was sitting there screaming and crying, so I discharged my firearm,” Shepherd said of the second two shots that were fired at Green, killing her.