A man will spend the rest of his life behind bars after he was convicted of fatally shooting his “best friend” more than three years ago over a social media post that claimed he was an informant for law enforcement, prosecutors said Monday.
Malik Mason was found guilty of murder in the death of 25-year-old Cha’leb Christopher Brown, who was shot at a Douglasville apartment complex on Nov. 6, 2020. On Friday, Douglas County Superior Court Judge Cynthia Adams sentenced Mason to life in prison without the possibility of parole, plus an additional 16 years, the district attorney’s office wrote in a news release.
Police were called to the Ravenswood Apartments just before 10 p.m. that day and discovered Brown on the ground bleeding and suffering from a single gunshot wound to his neck. Emergency personnel tried to save Brown, who died at the scene.
Witnesses told officers that Mason arrived at the complex parking lot with his girlfriend a few minutes before the shooting and started speaking with the victim. Prosecutors said the conversation became heated over a social media post that claimed Mason was “a rat.”