Man pleads guilty to killing at Quick Stop
♦ Sentencing for Lamar Rashad Nicholson, who also shot a second person at another convenience store, is set for April 2.
The man who gunned down a convenience store manager on Burnett Ferry Road in 2018 pleaded guilty to a total of 23 crimes including murder and armed robbery in Floyd County Superior Court on Wednesday.
The sentencing for Lamar Rashad Nicholson, 29, was set for April 2 after Judge J. Bryant Durham ordered a pre-sentencing investigation. Nicholson faces time up to life without parole plus 168 years.
It’s been one year since Nicholson gunned down Parmjit Singh “Rimmi” Dhrim, manager of the Hi-Tech Quick Stop, 500 Burnett Ferry Road.
Following that shooting Nicholson drove to another convenience store at 204 N. Elm St. where he shot and wounded clerk Parthey Patel, who survived the shooting.
Nicholson’s defense attorney, Christopher B. Cahill of Cartersville, asked for a pre-sentence investigation to be conducted, “so the judge can sentence him appropriately.”
Nicholson, who has remained in jail since his arrest a year ago, stood by Cahill while entering his plea and responded to questions from Durham without showing any emotion.
When asked if he was, in fact, guilty, Nicholson paused ever so briefly before uttering “yes.”
Security video recovered from Singh’s store indicates Nicholson fired at least three shots after entering the store. A second employee was not injured during the attack. Nicholson then went to a store on North Elm Street and robbed it before shooting Patel in the torso.
Witnesses at the North Elm Street store were able to give police a description of the suspect and his vehicle, which was stopped a short time later near the intersection of Redmond Road and Redmond Circle.
Both the weapon and cash taken from the second store were recovered after Nicholson’s arrest.
District Attorney Leigh Patterson said that since the sentencing was delayed she could not comment on the discussions that led up to the plea deal.
“He knew what he did. I don’t know why he did that,” said Singh’s brother Ricky Singh, who was not present in the courtroom during the pleading Wednesday.