On an August evening in 2017, the life of 20-year-old Carldrake Finister was cut short in his own Dallas, Georgia neighborhood. A graduate of Paulding County High School and a student at Georgia Perimeter College, the young Black man was with a friend at a picnic table near the tennis courts in the Vista Lake subdivision on Monday, August 28, 2017. An argument with a neighbor escalated into a fatal encounter, and Finister was shot multiple times.
The man responsible for his death, 23-year-old Lowe Deontae Payne, lived in the same Vista Lake community. Witnesses reported that a verbal altercation between Payne and Finister turned physical, leading to the deadly shooting. Two days later, on the evening of Wednesday, August 30, 2017, Payne surrendered to detectives at the Dallas Police Department. He was subsequently arrested and held at the Paulding County Jail without bond.
Payne was charged with felony murder and aggravated assault in connection with the shooting. In January 2020, he stood trial for the murder of his neighbor. Despite his claim of self-defense, a jury found Lowe Deontae Payne guilty of murder, aggravated assault, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, with an additional five years for the firearms charge. Throughout the trial and sentencing, it was noted that Payne showed no remorse for his actions.
