Karlton Sirmons will remain imprisoned for killing Tavarus Joiner after jurors convicted him in a deadly 2024 Villa Rica home invasion.
VILLA RICA, Ga. — Four years after a jury acquitted Karlton Marquavious Sirmons in a separate Georgia double-homicide case, another jury convicted him of murder in a Villa Rica home invasion, and a judge has sentenced him to life without parole plus 136 years.
The earlier acquittal was not evidence in the Villa Rica trial and jurors deciding the 2024 killing were not told about it, according to local court coverage. Its significance emerged only after the new verdict, when relatives of Tavarus “T-Bone” Joiner reacted to the conviction and sentencing. The two cases were separate prosecutions involving different victims and counties. What determined Sirmons’ latest sentence was the evidence presented in Douglas County concerning Joiner’s death, the shooting of two women, the treatment of children inside the home and other offenses committed during the Nov. 2, 2024, attack.
Judge Deah B. Warren imposed life imprisonment without the possibility of parole after jurors convicted Sirmons of malice murder, two counts of felony murder and numerous additional crimes. Local reports said the sentence also included another 136 years tied to offenses against the other people in the house. At the hearing, Warren spoke about the scale of fear imposed on the family and made clear that the punishment was intended to keep Sirmons incarcerated permanently. Joiner’s relatives said the outcome brought relief after nearly two years of waiting for the case to reach a verdict.
The Villa Rica prosecution began with an early-morning attack at the home Joiner shared with his partner, Krisna Chea, and their two young children. Joiner’s cousin, Jacquenette Joiner, was also staying there. Prosecutors said Jacquenette had gone to the house to get away from Sirmons, her former boyfriend, and his abusive behavior. Police later described the situation as an ongoing domestic dispute, but they stressed that Tavarus himself had no relationship with Sirmons. He had provided his cousin a place to stay.
Shortly after 6 a.m., prosecutors said, Sirmons kicked open the front door and went inside looking for Jacquenette. He began attacking her. Tavarus came to investigate and was shot in the chest. Sirmons tried to shoot Jacquenette as well, but prosecutors said the gun jammed, allowing her to run upstairs. Rather than ending there, the confrontation followed her toward the master bedroom, where other members of the household were gathered and where Tavarus, already wounded, also ended up.
Chea was trying to call 911. Prosecutors said Sirmons shot Tavarus in the back, shot Chea in the leg and took the phone she had been using to seek help. He terminated the emergency call. When he attempted to shoot Chea again, prosecutors said, the firearm malfunctioned, and he struck her with it. The couple’s two young children were in the room and had taken cover beneath bedclothes. One of them later went into Jacquenette’s arms, and prosecutors said Sirmons struck Jacquenette and the child with the gun.
Jacquenette fled into a guest bathroom, where she tried to keep Sirmons out by barricading the door. He broke through its lower portion and shot her eight times, according to prosecutors. Authorities said the attack stopped after the gun ran out of ammunition. Sirmons left before officers reached the house. Joiner died. Jacquenette and Chea suffered serious injuries and were taken to Grady Memorial Hospital, but both survived and eventually testified against Sirmons. Prosecutors said another adult family member with autism had also been inside.
Police developed evidence from the scene almost immediately. Officer Deborah Williams later told jurors that responding officers found the front entrance forced open and heard a woman screaming from an upstairs window. They encountered multiple victims as they searched the residence, including one person hiding in a closet. Investigators found seven shell casings and a firearm in a bathroom sink. Body-camera video recorded during the response captured a survivor naming Sirmons as the gunman, according to trial testimony.
Investigators also moved quickly outside the home. After identifying Sirmons and his vehicle, Villa Rica and Cobb County officers located him in Cobb County about two hours after the shooting, prosecutors said. By the end of that day, authorities had a suspect in custody. What remained was the longer work of preparing a prosecution that involved a homicide victim, two badly injured survivors, children who had been present and a series of offenses alleged to have occurred across several rooms of the residence.
The trial produced guilty verdicts on the murder charges as well as offenses reported to include aggravated assault, aggravated battery, home invasion, burglary, cruelty to children and exploitation of a disabled adult. Survivors testified, officers described what they found and jurors viewed police footage. The breadth of the verdict mattered at sentencing because the prosecution was not limited to Joiner’s death. The court also had to account for the attacks on Chea and Jacquenette and for the children and other family members exposed to the violence.
Only after jurors decided the case did the earlier Gwinnett County prosecution become part of public discussion surrounding Sirmons again. Gwinnett County authorities had arrested him in January 2020 in connection with two killings from Nov. 2, 2019. He was charged with two counts of felony murder and two counts of aggravated assault in that case but was acquitted at trial in 2022. The killings in that case occurred exactly five years before the Villa Rica attack. The coincidence of dates drew attention in later news reports, though prosecutors in the Douglas County case did not rely on the earlier allegations to establish guilt.
The distinction is legally important. An acquittal means the earlier prosecution did not result in a criminal conviction, and the Douglas County jury was required to decide the Villa Rica charges from evidence properly admitted in that trial. Reports from the 2026 proceedings said jurors were not told about the prior murder case. Their verdict therefore rested on the evidence surrounding Joiner’s death and the surviving victims, not on an invitation to punish Sirmons for allegations of which another jury had acquitted him.
At sentencing, however, family members viewed the new conviction through the longer history they knew outside the jury room. Joiner’s uncle expressed relief that the latest jury had convicted Sirmons. Chea addressed the court about the person she and her children had lost. Warren focused on the Villa Rica crime itself, describing the terror brought into the household and saying the circumstances warranted the strongest punishment available to her. The judge’s sentence ensured that even without the additional 136 years, Sirmons would have no opportunity for parole on the murder conviction.
District Attorney Dalia Racine said after the verdict that no criminal judgment could restore Tavarus Joiner’s life or undo the harm suffered by the adults and children in the home. She said the jury’s decision nevertheless provided accountability. That outcome is now the central legal fact separating the 2026 case from Sirmons’ earlier prosecution: the previous case ended in acquittal, while the Villa Rica case ended in a murder conviction and a sentence intended to last for the remainder of his life.
Sirmons remains subject to life without parole plus 136 years. Joiner was 32 when he was killed after, police said, he had given a relative somewhere to stay. Jacquenette and Chea survived their wounds and later appeared before the jury that convicted their attacker. With sentencing complete, the Douglas County prosecution has reached its trial-court conclusion, leaving the family with a final judgment in the case but with losses that the court acknowledged no sentence can reverse.
Author note: Last updated October 19, 2026.