John Jefferson
Background: Keegan Phillips is seen in handcuffs (YouTube/WXIA). Inset: Phillips (Hall County (Ga.) Sheriff’s Office).
A Georgia man who killed a woman and then returned to the scene of a crime a day later where he decapitated her and dumped the victim’s head in another location is headed to prison.
Keegan Cleve Plumer Phillips III, 25, pleaded guilty to murder, aggravated assault and two counts of abandonment of a dead body in the August 2023 death of 22-year-old Martha Angela Ledford. On Monday, a judge sentenced Phillips to life in prison plus six years, the District Attorney for the Mountain Judicial Circuit said in a press release.
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Prosecutors said Phillips strangled Ledford to death with a belt in early August 2023 at a home in Rabun County, Georgia. Phillips, with the help of his boss, Robert Lee Peppers Sr., moved Ledford’s body to another location. The next day Phillips came back to where they dumped the victim’s body and decapitated her. He then moved her head elsewhere, according to prosecutors.
At that point, cops didn’t even know she was missing or deceased. Pepper called law enforcement on Aug. 6, 2023, to detail what he and Phillips had done. Cops found Ledford’s body in both locations the next day.
Meanwhile, the Georgia Bureau of Investigations and other law enforcement agencies tracked down Phillips in Hall County, some 55 miles to the southwest of Rabun County on Aug. 8.
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As Law&Crime previously reported, a man told a local TV station about how he picked up a hitchhiker, having no idea he was a murder suspect.
According to Russell Jimmerson, Phillips, who hails from Otto, North Carolina, had been in his car just hours earlier.
Jimmerson was picking up his paycheck when he saw a man walking, local NBC affiliate WXIA reported. He didn’t know who the man was, but he decided to pick him up when it appeared that the man was looking for a ride.
“He just stuck his hand out, just very quickly. I told my son, ‘Let’s get him,”” he told the station.
“I help everybody,” Jimmerson added.
Jimmerson said that Phillips indicated that he had “been up all night, walking from Rabun County.”
The man said the hitchhiker had a backpack — and that he smelled awful, WXIA reported. It wasn’t until later that Jimmerson learned in a phone call that he had briefly traveled with a murder suspect.
“‘You won’t believe what happened,” he was told. “‘A guy in Rabun County murdered someone last night and has their head.’”
Jimmerson recalled the hitchhiker, his backpack, and the foul smell he carried.
“‘Man, you won’t believe what I’m fixing to tell you,’” Jimmerson said, relaying what he told a friend after the ordeal and learning that he had briefly traveled with a murder suspect. “‘There’s a smell in this car that’s awful.’”
“My buddy said, ‘Is this a joke? Did you pick up the hitchhiker?’” he told the station. “I said, ‘No, I really did.’”
Peppers, who is in his 60s, was charged with abandonment of a dead body and concealing death of another. His case remains ongoing.
Now Habersham News reported that Peppers was Phillips’ boss at a tree trimming company and the pair lived at a home without electricity at the time of the murder.
Marisa Sarnoff contributed to this report
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