John Jefferson
Inset top: Garcia Danielle Gaddis (Forrest Funeral Home). Inset bottom: Mark Antonio White (Gwinnett County District Attorney’s Office). Background: The location where Gaddis was killed (WSB).
A Georgia man will spend the rest of his life in prison for using an online dating site to lure a truck driver to his death.
Mark Antonio White, 23, was found guilty of felony murder, aggravated assault, armed robbery, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony for the shooting death of 39-year-old Garcia Danielle Gaddis, the Gwinnett County District Attorney’s Office announced in a press release.
“We pray that this verdict and the justice it serves provides some solace to this victim’s family and loved ones,” said Gwinnett County District Attorney Patsy Austin-Gatson. “The defendant took advantage of Mr. Gaddis and justice has been served.”
Gaddis was shot and killed on Oct. 21, 2021, a Thursday. The following Sunday, police responding to a noise complaint found his body, shot once in the head, in a Dodge Ram 1500 parked in a neighborhood. His cellphone, wallet and car keys were missing.
On the night he was last seen, Gaddis was contacted on the Tagged dating app by a user, who police ultimately identified as White. In the online exchange between the two, Gaddis had agreed to meet White near the Little Suwanee Pointe neighborhood, prosecutors said. When he was near, White told Gaddis to pick him up near the pool area, authorities said.
Surveillance cameras showed Gaddis’ truck driving through the neighborhood shortly after 11 p.m. and stopping to pick up a Black man with shoulder-length dreadlocks from the parking lot of the pool clubhouse, prosecutors said.
Minutes after the truck was seen driving toward the entrance to the neighborhood at Tech Center Parkway, the same dreadlocked man was seen walking from the entrance back to the pool clubhouse, officials said.
Police found a shell casing in the cab of Gaddis’ truck that matched three shell casings from a gun fired in a shooting on July 19, 2021, in which White was accused of shooting at his ex-girlfriend and her mother, prosecutors said.
The mother kept the shell casings and gave them to police when investigators contacted her in the Gaddis case, authorities said.
Authorities said police body camera footage from an eviction from a townhome across from the pool weeks later showed a man inside the unit dressed like the figure captured on video the night Gaddis was killed. White was arrested in June 2022.
Gaddis’ cousin, Mercedes Evans, told local NBC affiliate WXIA that the victim was loved and that he was a truck driver who also drove for Uber on his time off because he loved meeting people.
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