On Aug. 27 of last year, Breyana Davis dialed 911 to report a stabbing. She'd just plunged a knife into the heart of her roommate, a 21-year-old Georgia State University student, and doused him with boiling water at their DeKalb County apartment.
On Monday, Davis, 22, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter for killing Charles Rudison, a business major who also worked at a Publix distribution center.
Judge Gregory A. Adams sentenced her to 20 years to serve in prison.
Davis had initially been charged with murder. But the district attorney’s office allowed her to plead to the lesser offense after “extensive discussions with the victim’s family,” said Yvette Jones, DA’s spokeswoman.
Rudison’s sister, Karla Jones, had mixed feelings.
“I wish the years were longer,” she told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “but (at) least she's getting punishment for this.”
Jones and the rest of the family were devastated and confounded by the crime.
Rudison, who had met Davis on an online student housing board, died after a night out in downtown Atlanta. Davis, whose attorney couldn’t immediately be reached for comment, left him and another friend at one point and went back to their apartment on Bouldercrest Road.
Rudison and the other friend were angry with Davis, because they had to catch a ride through the Lyft service.
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Once they arrived to Ashford East Village apartments, it took only moments for Davis to douse him with boiling water and stab him, a detective testified in a previous hearing.
Even now, motives at play are mysterious.
“The defendant was angry with the victim for an unknown reason,” the DA’s spokeswoman said.
As news of the death spread last year, family, friends and classmates lamented Rudison.
“I lost my best friend and my brother at the same time,” his sister said.
Rudison, who had attended Gwinnett County's Mill Creek High, was a "class clown" and a student with too many dreams to count, Jones recalled. He wanted to be a writer and had written for the school newspaper at Georgia Southern University.
Even at 21, he was working with 100 Black Men of America, a mentoring organization, family said.
“This young man had a lot going for him,” aunt Jaunta Rudison said.
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