Nearly six years after he was hired to kill a friend’s wife, the hitman has been convicted of murder, according to the Fulton County District Attorney.
Adrian Earl Harley, now 42, was sentenced this week to life in prison without the possibility of parole, for killing Tiffany Jackson Pugh, court records showed.
On Nov. 23, 2014, Harley went into an East Point home and shot to death 30-year-old Pugh, according to investigators. Pugh, a mother of two, was found in a guest room bed with gunshot wounds to her eye and chest, police previously said. Her 2-year-old child was lying on top of his mother’s body, crying and begging for her to wake up, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution previously reported.
East Point detectives soon determined Pugh’s husband, an Atlanta strip club DJ, had hired his best friend to kill her. Andre Pugh, known as DJ Awesome at Club Onyx, called 911 from his driveway and said he believed his wife had been murdered even though he had not seen her body or entered the home, the DA’s office previously said.
Cellphone records showed Harley and Andre Pugh exchanged text messages and spoke on the phone before meeting in downtown Atlanta 30 minutes before the shooting. Phone records also placed Harley at the home when the woman was killed.
Harley was the best man when the Pughs were married and carried Tiffany Pugh’s coffin at her Nov. 29 funeral, according to previous testimony.
Both Pugh and Harley were arrested Dec. 5, 2014, at the strip club where Pugh worked. In October 2018, Pugh was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. He is currently serving at Telfair State Prison, according to the Georgia Department of Corrections.
Harley, 42, was convicted of felony murder, aggravated assault, conspiracy to commit murder and possession of a firearm during the commission of felony, the DA’s office said. He remained late Thursday in the Fulton jail, awaiting transport to prison.
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