Forest Park man convicted in murder of fast food employee protecting coworkers

FOREST PARK, Ga. - A man accused in the murder of a Church's Chicken employee during a robbery in DeKalb County is expected to spend the rest of his life behind bars.

On Dec. 18, 2010, the DeKalb County Police were called to respond to the scene of a robbery just before 9 p.m. at the Church's Chicken on Flakes Mill Road.

Inside the shop, they discovered 23-year-old Gary Andrews on the ground. He had been shot in the head.

Witnesses told police that two masked men holding guns entered the restaurant and demanded entry to a safe. While the suspects were in the front with the cashier, witnesses said Andrews was in the back trying to calm his coworkers and help them hide in a freezer.

The duo allegedly hopped over the counter, and one of them put a gun to another employee's head.

Police were told that Andrews tried to intervene and was shot twice. The suspects allegedly took cash from the register and ran.

After a while, the case went cold. It wasn't until two years later that DeKalb County Police Department's Cold Case Unit would pick it back up. The FBI received a tip that led the team to 33-year-old Rashad Rogers from Forest Park.

An informant told the FBI that Rogers, alongside two men named Clifford Jackson and Clifford Durham, showed up at his house with a lot of money the same night as the robbery and murder.

The informant said that he overheard the men talking about the shooting, claiming that he heard Rogers say, "He shouldn’t have moved, I had to do it."

In November 2012, Rogers, Jackson and Durham all pleaded guilty in federal court to their indictment for the bank robbery.

Murder warrants were taken out for Rogers and Jackson on Oct. 15, 2013. Records show that Durham was dead.

Jackson pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter on June 10, 2024, and was sentenced to serving 20 years in prison.

Rogers was found guilty of malice murder and felony murder and was sentenced to life.