Floyd County Superior Court Judge Tami Colston has sentenced two individuals who pled guilty to murdering an elderly man in 2012 – to life without parole. That sentence was handed down on Thursday to Edward Gaines and Laura Ann Payne – for the murder of 76 year old Jozell Payne at his Callier Springs Road home in September of that year.

The pair bound the victim with duct tape, the suffocated him with a gasoline-soaked rag – before taking his credit cards and driving away in his Chevy Avalanche pickup truck.

In addition to the life sentence on the malice murder charge, both were sentenced to 20 years for aggravated assault, 20 years for robbery and five years on each of three counts of theft by taking, all to run concurrently.

Gaines was additionally sentenced to five years, to run consecutively, for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

(WRGA/www.wrgarome.com)