Mark Antonio White, 23, (photo) had been involved in a shooting incident three months before the attack (Gwinnett County District Attorney’s Office)
A Georgia man was robbed and fatally shot in the head after being lured to his killer through a dating app.
Mark Antonio White, 23, was found guilty of a misdemeanor assault murderworsened raidarmed robbery and possession of a firearm in the 2021 robbery of the victim, according to the Gwinnett County District Attorney’s Office.
White was sentenced to life in prison plus five years without the possibility of parole for using the online dating app as a cover to rob and kill 39-year-old Garcia Danielle Gaddis.
Gaddis had gone out on the “date” on the evening of October 21, 2021, but was never seen alive again.
Three days later, police were alerted to a suspicious Dodge Ram 1500 truck parked in a Lawrenceville neighborhood. Inside the car, police found Gaddis’ body “with a single gunshot wound to his head” and his valuables, including his cell, wallet and car keys, were all reportedly missing.
Garcia Danielle Gaddis, 39, (pictured) was shot in the back of his car after picking up the 23-year-old late at night in 2021 (Forrest Funeral Home)
On the night he was last seen, investigators discovered that Gaddis had been contacted by a man they eventually determined was White on the Tagged. dating app.
After exchanging several messages, the duo planned to meet near the Little Suwanee Pointe neighborhood. But as he drove to the location, White messaged Gaddis to pick him up at a pool.
Surveillance cameras showed Gaddis driving his truck through the neighborhood shortly after 11 p.m. and picking up a black man with shoulder-length dreadlocks from the pool clubhouse parking lot, prosecutors said.
Minutes later, the truck was seen driving toward the entrance to the Lawrenceville neighborhood and the same man with dreadlocks was seen walking from the entrance back to the pool clubhouse where Gaddis had picked him up.
When authorities searched Gaddis’ Dodge truck, shell casings consistent with casings fired from a handgun during a previous incident in July 2021 were found in the cab.
At that point in July, White was accused of firing a bullet at his ex-girlfriend and her mother.
But the mother had collected the shell casings from the incident and held them until police contacted her as they began investigating Gaddis’ murder.
White was eventually tracked down by surveillance — dressed similarly to the man captured the night of Gaddis’ murder — at an eviction from a poolside townhome several weeks later.
He was arrested in June 2022.