By Elizabeth Billips
True Citizen Associate Editor

A favor for a cousin turned fatal for an eleventh grader who was shot to death Thanksgiving weekend.

Simpson “Tyrone” Cates, Jr., 16, was found dead behind the wheel of his mother’s Mercury around 10 a.m. Saturday.

By midnight, Millen resident Christopher Derek Chance, 22, had implicated himself.

“He called and said he couldn’t stand it any longer and wanted to bring the gun in,” said Capt. Frankie Parker, an investigator for the Burke County Sheriff’s Office.

The following morning, Chance’s first cousin Raymond “Trey” Sapp, 17, of Waynesboro turned himself in as well.

The cousins told GBI agents and deputies they didn’t know Cates and hadn’t expected to meet him the morning the fatal shot was fired.

“They had arranged to meet the victim’s cousin to buy crack cocaine,” Capt. Parker said. “Tyrone was doing his cousin a favor by meeting them.”

Though Chance and Sapp each claim the other was the gunman, both have indicated the murder was a result of an armed robbery gone awry.

GBI agents and deputies believe it happened between 6:20 and 7 a.m. Saturday … several hours before Cates’ body was discovered on Ben Bargeron Road, a rural dirt road a mile outside of Sardis and about three miles from the victim’s home.

Officers say a local couple was taking their grandchildren on a ride to spot wild turkeys when they drove up on the idling Mercury and saw what appeared to be a sleeping teenager behind the wheel.

After knocking on the window and trying to rouse the boy, the grandfather realized Cates had been shot and called 911.

Though drugs were at the core of the murder, investigators believe Cates was a good kid who put himself in a bad situation.

“Tyrone’s involvement (in drugs) was extremely low-level … if that,” Capt. Parker said calling the teenager a good student who worked after school at Sonic and was well liked by teachers and peers.

According to school officials, grief counselors will be available to Cates’ former classmates at Burke County High School all this week.

In the meantime, both Chance and Sapp are being held at Burke County Jail on charges of murder and possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime.

Right now, there are no charges against the victim’s cousin, according to Gary Nicholson, Special Agent in Charge of the GBI office in Thompson. He said that will be left up to District Attorney Ashley Wright.