In March 2020, two men argued over a parking spot outside Lenox Square, according to police.
The two went inside the mall, but the dispute wasn’t over. When they left, Ricky James LaFargue pulled out a gun and shot Thuan Nguyen in the head, according to investigators. Nguyen, a 31-year-old father from Tennessee, died at the scene.
This week, a jury convicted LaFargue, 24, of murder. He was then sentenced to life without parole.
Prosecutors had recommended a sentence of life with the possibility of parole due to LaFargue’s age, Channel 2 Action News reported. The New York man was 19 at the time of the shooting.
But Judge Alice Benton exceeded that and ordered he serve life in prison without the possibility of parole, plus five years.
“This case is particularly disturbing,” Benton said. “It was described by witnesses to the murder as an execution. It was pure evil with a gun pointed to the back of that victim’s head when you pulled the trigger and killed the man, leaving his family and his child with no father.”
After the shooting, police released surveillance images of three people possibly involved. Four days after the incident, Lafargue was charged with Nguyen’s murder but he eluded capture until November 2020.
“Arresting Ricky Lafargue makes one less dangerous criminal on the streets,” Atlanta police posted on social media at the time of his arrest.
Lafargue was booked into the Fulton County jail in February 2021 and has remained behind bars since.
The shooting was the fourth in as many months at Lenox, but the only homicide, according to police. The violence led to increased security at the Buckhead mall.
