A Clayton County judge sentenced Nicholas Lloyd Price to life in prison with the possibility of parole, plus five years, for shooting 21-year-old Norman Johnson III 13 times outside his Riverdale apartment in 2021. A jury found Price guilty of malice murder, two counts of felony murder, two counts of aggravated assault, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony before the sentence was handed down.
According to the Clayton County District Attorney's Office, as reported by FOX 5 Atlanta, prosecutors say Price arrived at the Riverdale apartment complex in a silver Audi and waited about two hours watching Johnson's apartment before making his move. Shortly after Johnson's friends left, Price walked toward the apartment, prosecutors say, and shot Johnson 13 times before running from the scene carrying a bookbag. Cell phone records placed Price in the immediate area at the time of the shooting, and investigators later matched his vehicle to the silver Audi captured on surveillance video.
The DA's office release did not establish whether Price and Johnson knew each other before the shooting, nor did it state why Price targeted Johnson or what led to the attack, leaving that connection unaddressed in the office's own account. That gap stands in contrast to earlier reporting: according to Clayton County Police Department reports cited by FOX 5 Atlanta in October 2023, detectives identified robbery as the motive after a family member's tip connected police to Price, who was described at the time as a childhood friend and former basketball teammate of Johnson. Price was 18 years old at the time of the 2021 shooting.
A Two-Year Trail From Tip to Arrest
Johnson was found dead inside his apartment in the 5000 block of Georgia Highway 85 after officers responded to a reported home invasion around 9:45 p.m. on June 9, 2021, according to police reports relayed by WSB Radio at the time. Law enforcement did not receive the tip linking Price to the shooting until February 2022, and investigators spent more than two years analyzing evidence, cell phone records, and suspect leads before securing arrest warrants against Price in late 2023, per statements from the Clayton County Police Department reported by WSB-TV. A grand jury indicted co-defendant Tremaine Jackson alongside Price on October 11, 2023, charging Jackson, who was 21 at the time of the incident, with malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, first-degree burglary, and firearm possession by a first-offender probationer. The current status or outcome of Jackson's case was not addressed in available reporting.
The investigation drew in agencies well beyond Riverdale. A Clayton County Police Department advisory from October 2023 states the case involved active assistance from the Clayton County Sheriff's Office Fugitive Unit, the Fayetteville Sheriff's Office, the Atlanta Police Department, and the Fulton County Sheriff's Office, underscoring how far detectives had to reach across jurisdictions to close the case.
A Father's Grief and a Life Interrupted
Johnson's father told FOX 5 Atlanta in June 2022 that his son was an aspiring entrepreneur planning to open a barbershop and had been living independently for about a year before he was killed. He also said there was no sign of forced entry into the apartment and that nothing appeared to have been stolen, details that have never squared neatly with the robbery motive investigators later cited.
Clayton County District Attorney Tasha Mosley said the conviction could not undo the violence Johnson's family suffered but might bring them some measure of peace. Her office has handled other high-profile violent crime prosecutions in the county recently; in July, Hoodline reported that Mosley's team secured a 20-year sentence in a separate case involving a 2021 vehicular assault outside a Jonesboro restaurant.
What Price's Sentence Actually Means
Because Price was convicted of murder committed after July 1, 2006, Georgia Code § 42-9-39 and State Board of Pardons and Paroles regulations require him to serve a mandatory minimum of 30 years before parole can even be considered, regardless of the life-with-parole label attached to his sentence. Johnson's killing occurred during a historic spike in Clayton County violence; the county recorded 49 homicides in 2021, a 40% surge, according to Clayton County Police Department data reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. By contrast, homicides in the county fell to 30 in 2025, one of the lowest annual totals in nearly a decade, per official crime statistics the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported in February.
