A Clayton County jury convicted Albert Charles Wright of malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault and two firearm charges on Oct. 30, more than two years after prosecutors say he gunned down an unarmed man eating lunch in a Morrow supermarket parking lot. Fernando Barber, 42, was shot five times and left in the middle of the lot, where officers found him unresponsive in the early morning hours of Aug. 25, 2023.
According to FOX 5 Atlanta, prosecutors told jurors that Barber was unarmed and eating tuna and crackers when he was shot five times. Detectives built their case in part by reviewing surveillance footage from the supermarket, which led them to identify Wright, then 18 years old, as the shooter. A separate Instagram post from CrimeWatch Atlanta
also recapped the jury's murder conviction in the case.
How Investigators Tracked Wright to Virginia
After the shooting, Wright fled to Virginia, according to the station's report. Authorities eventually tracked him down there, where a Clayton County police detective interviewed him before officials extradited him back to Clayton County to face charges.
Earlier reporting from WSB-TV showed that, in the weeks after the killing, Clayton County police were still searching for a person of interest and said investigators had learned Barber had been in a fight before he was shot. In a separate piece, WSB-TV spoke with Barber's family as they sought answers, with a cousin describing him walking through the parking lot of the Lake Harbin Plaza Shopping Center near the Mi Rancho Supermarket moments before he was killed.
Motive Still Unclear, Sentencing Set for Later This Month
Authorities have not released a motive for the shooting, nor have they said whether Wright and Barber knew each other, per the same account. That gap leaves unanswered a central question hanging over the case even after the conviction.
Wright remains in custody awaiting sentencing. A judge is set to sentence him on Nov. 17, according to the station's reporting on the verdict.
