A Jenkins County man was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of a Sardis murder in a retrial.

Christopher Derek Chance, 23, was found guilty of a felony murder last Friday evening for the November 2008 shooting death of 16- year-old Simpson “Tyrone” Cates Jr. Felony murder indicates that someone was killed while a felony was being committed, regardless of intentions. In this case, the felony was criminal attempt to possess cocaine.

Superior Court Judge Michael N. Annis sentenced Chance to the mandatory life in prison for felony murder plus five years for the cocaine and firearm charges.

In a previous trial, Chance was found guilty of criminal attempt to possess cocaine and possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime. However, the jury in that trial was hung on the felony murder charge after deliberating for nearly two days, making a second trial necessary. It took the second jury just over an hour to return a guilty verdict.

Chance and his cousin Raymond Trey Sapp, 19, were arrested Thanksgiving weekend in 2008 for murdering Cates, who was shot in the head while delivering about $150 worth of crack cocaine to the pair for his own cousin, a known drug dealer in Sardis at the time.

Cates’ body was found in an idling car on a dirt road near Sardis just hours after he was supposed to have delivered the drugs.

By midnight, Chance had turned himself in but blamed the shooting on Sapp. When Sapp turned himself in the following morning, he pointed the finger at Chance.

Both have denied being the trigger man ever since and said they had no idea the other was about to kill Cates for the drugs.

At his trial, Chance detailed the hours leading up the crime, which included an all-nighter of drinking and drugs with friends before the group returned to his house in Jenkins County. He said he and Sapp left again just before sunrise to shine deer and decided to buy some more cocaine. After the murder, the two continued to hang out and purchased cocaine at least two more times before they began to turn on one another.

Sapp stood trial in March and was convicted of felony murder as well as the firearms and cocaine charges. He also received life in prison plus five years.

Both Sapp and Chance were acquitted of malice murder, which would have essentially indicated one was the trigger man.

Assistant district attorney Rex Myers said knowing who pulled the trigger is not as important as recognizing that Sapp and Chance acted together to pull off the robbery and killing.

“Nobody knows who the shooter is except for Chris and Trey and Tyrone, who will never be able to tell us because he is dead,” Myers said. “Neither of their stories makes any sense. They are both lying about some if not all of their versions of what happened that night.”