East Cobb Residents Plead Guilty to Manslaughter, Get Prison Time

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An East Cobb couple will be spending quite a few years apart from each other after pleading guilty to manslaughter in the 2014 death of a Florida man, the Cobb County District Attorney’s Office announced Friday.

Gharri Nicholas Lawson of Jacksonville was staying at the East Cobb home of Danielle Matzkow Darby and Terry Louis Thomas II on March 18, 2014 when he died from a drug overdose. Darby and Thomas called 911 and told police that Lawson had died from an overdose of pills, according to the DA’s Office.

Immediately after the police left, though, prosecutors say that Darby and Thomas called a pawn shop and pawned his jewelry. They were both arrested for stealing Lawson’s jewelry, but told fellow inmates that they had killed Lawson with a fatal overdose of heroin, said the DA’s Office.

After the inmates reported this to authorities and toxicology reports showed that Lawson had indeed died of a heroin overdose, Darby and Thomas faced additional charges for Lawson’s death, the DA’s Office said.

Darby and Thomas were both sentenced to serve 15 years in prison by Cobb Superior Court Judge Adele Grubbs, the DA’s Office said.