When road rage between two carloads of people spilled into a Cobb County apartment complex, another woman was called to help and grabbed a gun. She was already a convicted felon on probation.
Sparkles Lashayla Lindsey didn't know the woman she shot, according to police. But hours later, a 21-year-old Kennesaw State University student was dead. On Tuesday, Lindsey pleaded guilty in the October 2013 shooting death of Kimberly Faith Kilgore and was sentenced to life in prison, with the possibility of parole.
District Attorney Vic Reynolds told Channel 2 Action News the Kilgore family agreed to the plea deal, even though it allows the killer to seek parole in 30 years.
“They were very gracious in this case,” Reynolds said. “They’re kind, decent, gracious kind of people and consented to this plea, and we’re in favor of it so we’re glad to wrap this case up for them.”
Kilgore, of Dallas, graduated from Paulding County High School and was a communications student and a former member of the Gamma Phi Beta sorority at KSU. She also worked at Johnny’s BBQ in Powder Springs, where her co-workers and friends described a happy woman with a constant smile.
“Kimmie” was out with friends in October 2013 when she was shot in the parking lot of the Shiloh Green Apartments off Wade Green Road, just west of I-75. She was transported to WellStar Kennestone Hospital, where she later died.
Investigators said the shooting was the result of an altercation between two carloads of women near the gate of the complex, and that Lindsey didn’t know Kilgore. Kilgore’s friends later said they watched helplessly as she was shot.
“I was in the passenger seat and she was looking right at me when it happened,” Shannon Stone said at a vigil honoring Kilgore. “I was the last sight she saw before her life was taken, and I couldn’t stop it.”
Lindsey, 23, of Austell, was quickly identified as the suspect and arrested in the hours after Kilgore's death. In January 2014, Lindsey was indicted on murder charges. She has remained in the Cobb County jail without bond since her Oct. 12, 2013, arrest, booking records showed.
When she killed Kilgore, Lindsey was on probation for a conviction in Cobb County just seven months earlier. On April 1, 2013, Lindsey was sentenced to six years on probation for simple battery and obstruction, according to Cobb County Superior Court Records. As a convicted felon, Lindsey should not have had a gun.
In August 2012, Lindsey was arrested after jumping on her girlfriend, punching and choking her, her arrest warrant stated. She then kicked and punched an officer attempting to separate her from attacking the other woman.
Lindsey’s criminal history dates back to December 2008, when she was accused of punching a student 17 times while on a school bus, records showed.
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