MOULTRIE — Jeffery Alan Peacock was convicted Thursday of all 14 counts against him in connection with the shooting deaths of five friends May 15, 2016.

Superior Court Judge James Hardy sentenced Peacock to five consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole — one for each of the victims: Jonathan Garrett Edwards, Ramsey Jones Pidcock and Aaron Reid Williams, all 21; Alicia Brooke Norman, 20; and Jordan Shane Croft, 22.

In addition, Peacock was sentenced to 20 years to be served consecutively on a charge of arson for setting their house on fire in an attempt to cover up the crime.

Peacock was also convicted of five counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime, which were merged into a single count. He was sentenced to five years in prison on that count, to be served concurrently with the life sentences.

He was also convicted of three counts of aggravated cruelty to animals because of the deaths of three dogs. Two died of smoke inhalation and burns during the fire and the other suffered a devastating head injury. On those counts, he was sentenced to five years each, all of them to be served concurrently.

Both the prosecution and defense rested their cases late Wednesday afternoon. Thursday’s session began with a defense motion for a directed verdict of not guilty — which was denied — followed by closing arguments from the defense then the prosecution.

The key question was what parts of Peacock’s statement to GBI Agent Jason Seacrist on May 18, 2016, were reliable. About half of the seven-hour interview was played for the court on Wednesday.

Peacock’s version of events

Seacrist testified that early in the interview — in the part that was not played for the court — Peacock maintained his original story: That everyone was up in the house when he left about 8 a.m. to get cigarettes and to get breakfast for everyone. When he returned, the house was on fire.

The prosecution played the interview starting at about 3 hours 48 minutes in — shortly after Peacock is told that he’s under arrest for the murders.

During the continued interrogation, Peacock breaks down. He tells Seacrist that the only person alive when he returned to the house about 1:30 a.m. was Jordan Croft — although he didn’t know it at the time.

Peacock says Croft met him in the kitchen when he returned from dropping Mika Snipes off at her house, and he invited him to drink whiskey and then to do some cocaine.

“As soon as I snorted that first line, something was wrong,” Peacock says. “… I felt really weird and I didn’t like it.”

Peacock says he doesn’t know how long he was in the kitchen with Croft, but a long time. Eventually he moved to the next room, and when he rounded the corner he saw Ramsey Jones Pidcock lying on the floor. As he approached him, he saw the blood from Pidcock’s head wound.

When he reached Pidcock, he could see Aaron Reid Williams lying in the doorway of his bedroom, and then he opened the door to the bedroom that Jonathan Edwards and Alicia Norman shared. Norman was lying on the bed with blood all around, and Edwards was lying on the floor beside the bed.

Peacock says Croft came up behind him, and Peacock shoved him and started to beat him severely. Croft had a pistol in his waistband, Peacock says, and he started to raise it. Peacock, who served in the Marine Corps, says he took the gun from Croft, stepped back, cocked it and shot him twice in the head.

Peacock says he checked for vital signs, but all of his friends were dead.

He says he didn’t know what to do, so he started drinking beer and smoking marijuana.

“I got to thinking the house has a really horrible electric … Maybe I could just start a fire and cover it up,” he tells Seacrist.

He describes scraping Edwards’ wooden dresser with a knife and setting the shavings alight with a butane lighter. A comforter from the bed caught the flame, and Peacock got in his truck and left. While driving, he came up with the plan to get breakfast as an excuse not to be at the house when it caught fire, he says.

Defense arguments

Defense attorney Allan Sincox maintained in his closing arguments Thursday that Peacock’s version of events was the truth.

Under Georgia law, Sincox said, if the defense presents a version of events that points to innocence, the prosecution must prove that version of events didn’t happen. To do otherwise allows room for reasonable doubt that must lead to acquittal. He said the state failed to refute Peacock’s version of events, some details of which were supported by the state’s evidence.

“Virtually every shred of evidence cuts both ways,” he said.

Sincox listed reasons to believe Peacock’s version of events:

1. He revealed this information after four hours of grueling interrogation.

“You can see him slowly emotionally crumbling,” Sincox said of the interview that was played for the court. “What he tells them after that fits with all the facts they know.”

2. Jordan Croft’s autopsy showed he had both alcohol and cocaine in his system, not just cocaine metabolites as others in the house did, which fits with Peacock’s story of sharing liquor and cocaine with Croft a fairly short time before the fight that led to Croft’s death.

3. Investigators had held back the fact that Alicia Norman was shot twice. Peacock says on the recording that he’d shot Croft twice, but Seacrist tells him Croft was shot only once. There was someone shot twice, he says, and Peacock asks him who but he won’t say. Sincox pointed out that Peacock gave no indication he knew it was Norman.

4. In spite of Seacrist’s statement, Peacock re-affirms that he shot Croft twice. Croft’s skull was damaged during the fire and recovery process to the point the medical examiner could confirm one entry wound but could not say whether or not there were more.

5. Peacock tells Seacrist he did not use an accelerant like gasoline or kerosene to start the fire. Seacrist says the fire investigators believe there was an accelerant used and tells him it won’t matter either way to what charge Peacock faces, so he urges him to tell the truth. Peacock repeats he didn’t use an accelerant. Since then, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation Crime Lab has reported on samples submitted by the arson investigators; it found no indication of accelerants in the debris samples or on clippings from Peacock’s clothing.

6. The placement of Jordan Croft’s body supports Peacock’s version, Sincox said. If Croft had been asleep in his usual spot, he’d have been on a fold-out bed in the living room. He wasn’t. His body was found near the front door, which Sincox said is a likely place if Peacock and Croft had started fighting in the hall.

7. In Peacock’s interview, he says Croft told him he got the cocaine from “Blow,” who lives at Indian Lake. Investigators followed up that lead, and a confidential informant was able to confirm someone with the nickname “Blow” did deal drugs around Indian Lake, according to testimony by Seacrist and Colquitt County Sheriff’s Investigator Mike Murfin.

8. Peacock drove Mika Snipes home in the wee hours of May 15. Snipes testified that when she left, she didn’t know where Jordan Croft was.

Sincox also sought to explain away some of the prosecution’s evidence:

• The blood on Peacock’s clothing could have come when he checked the vital signs of his friends after shooting Croft.

• The prosecution used testimony from a husband and wife who live across the street to indicate the shots were fired around 4:30 or 5 a.m., but both testified Elia Rodriguez woke her husband because the noise woke her. She described the noise as like car doors slamming. Sincox said he believes Rodriguez’s husband was awakened from a deep sleep and now imagines he heard the noise based on his wife’s description. Neither of them described the noises as gunfire, and no other neighbors reported hearing the noises.

In the recorded interview, Peacock says Jordan Croft was small and was picked on by other members of their clique. Sincox said investigators never followed up on that statement and such bullying has been the motive for fatal attacks before. In his testimony Wednesday, Seacrist said investigators had asked many people about relationships in the group, but none had singled out Croft as being picked on except in Peacock’s interview.

The prosecution’s argument

Assistant District Attorney Jim Prine argued that Peacock was not credible and his version of events was not realistic.

1. Peacock lied from the beginning with the “went to get breakfast” story, which was quickly proven to be false. Then he maintained it in the face of evidence to the contrary.

2. The timeline GBI Agent Jason Seacrist established from Peacock’s story and other evidence would have him in the kitchen drinking, snorting cocaine and talking with Jordan Croft for four hours before stepping out and discovering Ramsey Jones Pidcock’s body.

3. Peacock says Jordan Croft had a gun in his waistband, but he also says he beat Croft severely before Croft pulled it out — even though he’d already killed four other people in cold blood.

4. Peacock says he checked his friends’ vitals. He describes feeling the side of the neck for a pulse and listening at the mouth for breathing and specifically says he rolled at least one of them over to do it. But all of the bodies were found face-down.

5. Peacock says Alicia Norman’s bed was covered in blood. He says he held her for a moment then covered her back up with the bedclothes. Prine was incredulous that Peacock got only one drop of Norman’s blood on his clothes if he did as he says he did.

6. A reasonable person would call 911 or his parents or somebody after such a traumatic event, Prine said. Instead, Peacock says he sat around drinking beer and smoking marijuana.

7. In his recorded interview, Peacock says one thing he’s good at is drinking and another is guns. “I’m a quick shot and accurate,” he says. By contrast, Prine said, he says Jordan Croft “wasn’t a gun guy.”

8. In testimony Wednesday, Seacrist read from text messages dated March 29, 2016, about Jonathan Edwards kicking Peacock out of the house. Then the prosecution presented a receipt for the purchase of the handgun that was used in the shootings; it was dated March 30, 2016. Peacock renewed his friendship with Edwards and the others after a few weeks, but he did not move back in. Nonetheless, in his interview, Peacock describes where Edwards kept the gun and says Edwards never left a cartridge in the chamber.

“He knew a lot about a gun that was purchased the day after he was kicked out,” Prine said.

9. Peacock drove to Hardee’s barefoot on Sunday morning. His shoes were in the house, and they were destroyed in the fire. Prine argued it was on purpose because there was so much blood on the floor it had to be on the shoes.

“He destroyed his shoes in the fire just like he tried to destroy all the other evidence,” he said.

“No reasonable person would believe this story,” Prine told the judge. “No unreasonable person would believe this story.”

Mothers of the victims

Court recessed at 11:06 a.m. Thursday for Judge Hardy to consider his verdict. Peacock’s defense team had waived his right to a jury trial in exchange for the prosecution not seeking the death penalty.

Hardy returned at 12:30 p.m. He listed, count by count, the verdicts: Guilty on all charges.

Prior to sentencing, the mothers of two of the victims addressed the court.

Aaron Reid Williams’ mother, Suzanne, told the judge how she and her husband struggled with infertility and were able to have Reid after medical intervention. She had a difficult pregnancy, and she “coded” during an emergency C-section to bring him into the world.

“I thought, ‘After all this God surely has something planned for him,’” she said, “and I still believe that.”

She described him as a mannerly young man, but she said after some of the things she’d heard about him during the trial she’d “take a belt to him” if he were here now.

“He was not perfect, but he was pretty darn close in my eyes,” she said.

She said he was carefree, but his demeanor changed in February 2016 when Memarie Dibenedetto died. Dibenedetto was described in the trial as Jeffery Peacock’s girlfriend, but clearly she meant a lot to others in the group too.

Suzanne Williams said Reid picked back up after that loss, but he changed again later. He told her Peacock had been on the couch for days surrounded by beer cans and drugs. He said he’d asked Peacock how they could help and Peacock had yelled at him to go away.

“Once again I held my child in tears because he couldn’t help his friend,” Suzanne Williams said.

Some time after that, Reid told her he needed to leave his gun at her house. In an incident that was described during the trial, Peacock had acquired Reid’s handgun and was found asleep in his truck with the hammer cocked.

She said the friends got all the guns out of the house then “all to protect Jeffery.”

Reid was with her when he got a text after Jonathan Edwards had kicked Peacock out, she said.

“Mama, we don’t know where Alicia is and Jeffery took the news bad,” he said as he rushed out the door to help look for Norman. They found her. She was safe. But Reid stayed with his mother that night.

“Those kids were afraid of Jeffery,” Suzanne Williams told the judge. “No matter what he did, they always seemed to forgive him and take him back.”

Williams’ voice broke as she talked about not having her only child around and not having biological grandchildren, although a stepson has provided her with a wonderful family.

She said she prayed for “a short life” so she could rejoin Reid in heaven.

Lucretia Roddenberry, Ramsey Jones Pidcock’s mother, said the death of her son had changed her life. Before, she was on no medication. Now, she takes medicine for depression, anxiety and more. She’s left her job and gone on disability because of the emotional toll of the murder.

“I’m attacked constantly by many demons this incident has caused,” she said.

Both mothers asked the judge to set the maximum sentence for Peacock, a plea echoed by District Attorney Brad Shealy and Assistant DA Jim Prine.

The judge responded as they asked.