In the late hours of a September night in 1994, in Surrency, a small community in Appling County, Georgia, a convenience store clerk named Karen Crosby was closing up the shop for the night. A white female, Crosby had just locked the doors and set the alarm when she was confronted in the parking lot by two men, Warren King and his cousin, Walter Smith. At gunpoint, King demanded she 'give it up.'
Recognizing King, Crosby spoke his name before tossing her keys to Smith, who then entered the store.
While Smith was inside, King held Crosby at gunpoint. The store's surveillance camera captured Smith running from the store, followed by the sound of two gunshots approximately 24 seconds later. Karen Crosby was fatally shot. Smith would later testify that as they fled the scene, King exclaimed, 'I hope I killed the bitch.' Both men were subsequently arrested and charged with Crosby's murder.
Warren King was tried first. Prosecutors presented evidence that King and Smith had been at the convenience store earlier in the evening and that King had suggested they rob it. Smith, who had obtained a handgun from a relative, testified that King was the one who carried the weapon during the robbery and was the one who shot Crosby. In exchange for his testimony, Smith was granted immunity in King's trial. With no other witnesses or physical evidence pointing directly to King as the shooter, the jury convicted him of malice murder, armed robbery, and other charges in September 1998. He was subsequently sentenced to death.
During the sentencing phase of his trial, King testified that Smith had repeatedly urged him to shoot Crosby, but he had instead handed the gun to Smith, who then fired the fatal shots. In 2001, Walter Smith pleaded guilty to a charge of murder in Crosby's death and received a life sentence with the possibility of parole.
Years later, in July 2024, King's attorneys filed new legal documents alleging that the prosecutor in his trial, John B. Johnson, had hidden a plea deal with Walter Smith. An affidavit from one of Smith's attorneys stated that a verbal agreement had been reached before King's trial for Smith to receive a life sentence with parole in exchange for his testimony. King's lawyers are now seeking a new trial, arguing that this undisclosed deal casts doubt on the credibility of the sole eyewitness against him and that they were deprived of a fair trial.
