Man sentenced to life for the road rage murder of semi truck driver in Georgia

A Georgia man has been sentenced to prison for fatally shooting a semi truck driver in an act of road rage last year.

Deron Bell, 22, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the murder of 30 year old South Carolina-based truck driver Joseph Lee Briggs, Jr., according to Fox 5 Atlanta.

On November 29, 2022, Bell pleaded guilty to homicide charges related to the death of Briggs.

Briggs was killed on April 9, 2021, in Greensboro, Georgia.

Authorities said that Briggs was traveling west on I-20 when his vehicle veered off the road, crossed the eastbound lanes, and crashed into a wooded area near mile marker 132.

When the Greene County Sheriff’s Office responded to the crash, deputies discovered that Briggs had been shot multiple times through the door of his truck in a suspected road rage incident and had died.

Arrest warrants were issued for Bell one day after the death of Briggs.

On January 25, 2022, following 10 months of investigation, police were finally able to track Bell down to a Louisiana apartment complex, where he was arrested without incident.

District Attorney T. Wright Barksdale, III, described the slaying of Briggs as a “senseless act of road rage.”