Mark Millican
Dalton Daily Citizen
CHATSWORTH — A “drug deal that went south” has resulted in charges being both dropped and added among five people who authorities say were involved Saturday night in what was first thought to be an armed robbery.
Early Sunday morning Christopher London York, 21, of Peeples Road, and Jeremiah Mark Griffin, 22, of 504 S. Second Ave., were each charged by the Murray County Sheriff’s Office with one count of armed robbery in an incident at the Country Junction on Smyrna Church Road near Spring Place. Alesha Marie Nicholson, 22, of 815 Holly Creek Road, was charged by the sheriff’s office on Sunday with conspiracy to commit a crime, possession of marijuana, possession of Xanax and armed robbery. Alisha Faye Johnson, 18, of 727 Fullers Chapel Road, Unit A, was charged by the sheriff’s office on Sunday with conspiracy to commit a crime and armed robbery.
All the charges of armed robbery were dropped on Monday, a jail spokeswoman said. But York, Griffin, Nicholson and Johnson were each charged with one count of criminal conspiracy to sell marijuana on Wednesday.
The complainant in the case, William Kirk Murphy, 27, of 3006 Highway 225 in Calhoun, was charged Wednesday with filing a false report of a crime and false swearing (by writing). Griffin was charged on Wednesday with probation violation on an original charge of burglary, according to an arrest report.
“It’s a pending case,” said assistant district attorney Scott Minter. “The armed robbery charges were dismissed for lack of evidence.”
Detective Brett Morrison said all five were in a “conspiracy” to sell marijuana.
“It was a drug deal that went south,” he said. “I don’t know if they intended to take (Murphy’s) money, but at some point it went bad. We had surveillance footage from two different locations that showed the original victim was lying.”
At first Murphy told officers something like a gun was put in his face and that money was stolen from his front seat before he was hit in the face. The suspects fled in a car and were pulled over. Johnson said she owned the 1999 Kia Sportage in which the four were riding. That vehicle was used in a November robbery of a Mapco store in Eton, an earlier arrest report said. The drugs were found in Nicholson’s purse, according to the report. The money was returned to Murphy.
York, Griffin, Nicholson and Johnson were all released on bonds on Wednesday. Nicholson bonded out for $3,500, Griffin posted a $2,500 bond, Johnson paid a $2,500 bond and York bonded out for $1,500.
After Griffin bonded out, he turned himself back in on a probation violation in which the original charge was burglary and was locked up again, a jailer said. Murphy was given a $5,000 bond in Magistrate Court on Friday, but remained in jail Friday afternoon, a spokeswoman said. She said Griffin did not appear in Magistrate Court because probation violation bonds are not set there.
A time for the next court appearance on the sale of marijuana charges has not been set.
