Convicted getaway driver faces life in prison in bungled robbery
A getaway driver now faces life in prison for a Columbus armed robbery so poorly planned that he didn’t leave the car running and couldn’t drive away when it would not restart.
Jurors deliberated about two hours Thursday before finding Byron Brooks guilty of armed robbery in the Aug. 27, 2013, heist at Advance Auto Parts on 5421 Forrest Road.
Judge Frank Jordan Jr. set Brooks’ sentencing for 1:30 p.m. Oct. 21. Under Georgia law, he faces life in prison because of two prior felony convictions.
Prosecutors and their witnesses presented this account of the robbery:
Brooks borrowed a friend’s car before he and Travontea Martrayvious “Big Boy” McCray drove to a vacant Columbus Bank and Trust branch near the auto parts store, pulling into the back parking lot where it was dark. Brooks waited there while McCray walked to the shop.
Meanwhile Brooks called his girlfriend on his cellphone and told her he and “Big Boy” were robbing the auto parts store on Forrest Road.
About 8:40 p.m., McCray entered the store and told clerk Scott Battle he needed a headlight bulb for a Ford Taurus. Battle was about to ring up the sale when McCray said he had only $5 with which to pay for the $9.99 part. Battle offered to cover the difference, pulling out his own cash.
McCray pulled a revolver from his waistband and demanded money from the register. He took Battle’s money off the counter as the clerk tried to open the register. When it would not open right away, McCray started cursing and told him, “Think I won’t shoot?” He pulled the trigger, but the gun didn’t fire. It only clicked.
Battle got the register open and stepped back as McCray grabbed the cash drawer and ran.
Back at the car, Brooks abruptly told his girlfriend he had to go, and ended the call. When the car wouldn’t start, he and McCray got what cash they could, discarded the cash drawer and ran.
They left the drawer about 40 feet from the car, but a page of instructions for Advance Auto Parts workers lay just outside the passenger’s side door.
Brooks walked back to his friend’s house a few blocks away on Lansing Avenue and told her that her car broke down. They walked back to the vacant bank, where Brooks saw police and walked the other way.
Officers caught him and put him in the back of a patrol car, where he again called his girlfriend to tell her police were going to question him.
After the store clerk told officers Brooks was not the robber, they released him. He was arrested later after his ex-girlfriend told detectives about the cellphone call.
During closing arguments Wednesday, defense attorney Will Kirby tried to persuade jurors Brooks’ presence so close to his buddy’s robbery was a coincidence.
“It doesn’t come across to me as a planned robbery,” he said, suggesting McCray in desperation acted on the spur of the moment when he pulled the gun.
He noted that McCray neglected to wear a mask or gloves. He was recorded on store security cameras and left fingerprints on the cash drawer. The clerk quickly picked his photo from a collection of police mugshots.
Kirby questioned why Brooks would return with the car’s owner if he had just helped rob the store, and posited that Brooks simply had borrowed the car to buy the owner a snack, then pulled into the vacant bank parking lot when the vehicle broke down.
Were the incident a planned robbery, “it would be the worst planned robbery I ever heard of,” Kirby said.
It was planned, countered Assistant District Attorney Katie Hartford: “The plan didn’t go according to plan.”
Brooks’ story of pulling into the lot when the car broke down would not explain why he drove all the way to the rear and parked with the vehicle facing an alley leading onto nearby Woodruff Farm Road, she said. The only reason he returned was that he hoped to move the car before the police found it, she said. Otherwise he would not have tried to get away when he saw officers there.
Before Brooks went to trial, McCray pleaded guilty to armed robbery and using a gun to commit a crime. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison with 12 to serve and the rest on probation.
Brooks’ prior felony convictions include attempted robbery, battery and obstructing police on Sept. 24, 2012, and attempted burglary and possessing tools for committing a crime on Sept. 27, 2011.
This story was originally published October 8, 2015 at 2:26 PM.