Three February robberies led to the arrest and conviction of 23-year-old Carlos Hill for armed robbery and several other charges. This week, Hill had to answer for those crimes and was sentenced to spend the rest of his life behind bars.

After a week-long trial before Carroll County Superior Court Judge Dennis Blackmon, a jury convicted Hill on Friday, Nov. 21, of six counts, including armed robbery,

criminal intent to commit armed robbery, aggravated battery, robbery and two counts of aggravated assault. Despite pleas for mercy from Hill’s parents and friends, Blackmon sentenced Hill to life in prison plus 20 years during a sentencing hearing Tuesday.

Assistant District Attorney Adam P. Taylor, the prosecuting attorney In Hill’s case, said that on Feb. 6, 2008, Hill approached Papa John’s employee Benjamin Campbell as Campbell was leaving the restaurant. Hill shoved a metal object against Campbell and took Campbell’s cash, wallet and cell phone before fleeing on foot. On Feb. 12, Hill entered the Park Place Grocery and Citgo station on North Park Street, approached the sales counter and struck clerk Ilesh Kuma Kapatel in the head with a metal tire tool.

“He just completely bashed his skull, left him unconscious, then took off,” Taylor said.

Hill damaged the Citgo’s cash register but was unable to steal any money from it. Taylor said that Kapatel was left unconscious inside the store and racked up more than $3,000 in medical bills as a result of the assault. Today, Kapatel has mostly recovered from his injuries.

In a third incident on Feb. 16, Hill ran into the Speedy Spot store on Highway 113 and held a female clerk’s head down onto a counter. He and an accomplice who has never been arrested took more than $2,000 from the store’s cash register before fleeing.

Investigators from both the Carrollton Police Department and the Carroll County Sheriff’s Office executed a search warrant on Feb. 26 and found the weapon they believe he used in the first two robberies in a suitcase at the Efficiency Lodge where Hill was staying. He was arrested shortly afterward.

More than 15 witnesses were called during Hill’s trial, which started on Nov. 17. The verdict was returned at around 9:30 p.m. on Friday.

Hill was originally from Columbus, Miss., and according to Taylor, had not been living in Carroll County long when the robberies occurred.

Tyquann Walker, a friend of Hill’s, told Blackmon on Tuesday that Hill was a kind, hard-working church-goer who always treated others with respect.

“We all make mistakes, but he’s a good, decent person,” Walker said.

Hill’s parents approached Blackmon separately on Tuesday to plead for a lesser sentence than life in prison. Billy Ray Hill a pologized to Blackmon and to the state of Georgia for his son’s actions but said that life in prison was too strict a sentence for such a young person.

“Putting him away [for life] would be just like a partial death sentence for me and my wife,” he said.

Carlos Hill approached Blackmon to plead on his own behalf. As his mother cried in the gallery, Carlos Hill said that although he had been in trouble with the law before, he had never been convicted of a violent crime in the past.

“I just want you to have mercy on me,” he said. “Just give me a chance.”

Taylor argued that the state’s recommendation of life in prison was legitimate given the violence involved in the crimes for which Hill was convicted. Blackmon said that considering the weapon Carlos Hill used during the incidents, he was surprised that the charges were robbery-related instead of murder.

“It is a dangerous, scary, violent world, Mr. Hill, with you in it with your tire tool committing robberies all over Carroll County,” Blackmon said.