A DeKalb County jury convicted Talisha Moore-Real after prosecutors said surveillance video contradicted her account of the fatal motel encounter.

DECATUR, Ga. — An Atlanta woman convicted of deliberately driving a rental car into 53-year-old LaQuita Baker during a confrontation outside a DeKalb County motel has been sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole, plus 10 years. DeKalb County Superior Court Judge Tangela Barrie imposed the sentence Sept. 1 on Talisha Moore-Real, 35, less than a month after a jury found her guilty in Baker’s death.

The Aug. 7 verdict resolved a prosecution centered on a series of confrontations at a motel on Flat Shoals Road, repeated departures and returns to the property and evidence that prosecutors said showed Moore-Real steering the vehicle toward Baker before driving away. Jurors convicted Moore-Real of malice murder, felony murder, three counts of aggravated assault and first-degree cruelty to children. Official court calendars list the same six charges and identify Barrie as the judge who presided over the case. Baker died after the Sept. 29, 2025, encounter, according to the DeKalb County District Attorney’s Office.

Authorities said the dispute began when Moore-Real argued with Baker’s daughter. Investigators said Baker’s daughter was dating a man Moore-Real had previously dated, placing the women at the center of a relationship-related confrontation. Public accounts reviewed for this report do not identify the man or provide a transcript of what was said during the initial argument. Prosecutors said the dispute escalated when Moore-Real used the rental vehicle to ram a car belonging to one of Baker’s relatives. She then left the motel property, but the confrontation did not end with that first departure.

Moore-Real later returned to the motel and argued with her former boyfriend, according to prosecutors. When she drove away again, the man fired shots toward the rental car. Moore-Real called 911 to report the gunfire. Public statements from authorities do not say that Moore-Real was struck, and the reviewed reports do not establish whether the man was arrested or charged over the shooting. That gunfire became part of the sequence surrounding the case, but it was separate from the homicide charges on which Moore-Real was ultimately tried and convicted.

Prosecutors said Moore-Real came back to the motel roughly six minutes after leaving. Baker was in the parking lot with her daughter and another relative who was 17 at the time. Authorities said Moore-Real drove toward the group. Baker attempted to move out of the vehicle’s path, but prosecutors said Moore-Real directed the car toward her, struck her and ran over her before leaving the property again. The presence of the teenage relative became legally significant because Moore-Real was also convicted of first-degree cruelty to children in addition to the murder and assault counts.

A 911 call reporting that a person had been struck and run over brought DeKalb County police to the motel at about 10:40 p.m., according to authorities. Officers arrived as paramedics were attending to Baker. She was transported to Grady Memorial Hospital, where she was pronounced dead. Public accounts do not identify the 17-year-old relative, and the material reviewed does not establish whether the teenager or Baker’s daughter suffered physical injuries when the vehicle was driven toward them. Authorities focused their public statements on Baker’s death and the evidence used to establish who was driving.

The investigation quickly moved beyond witness accounts from the parking lot. Prosecutors said surveillance cameras at the motel and a nearby gas station recorded the collision. A witness also photographed the rental car’s license plate. That image allowed detectives to trace the vehicle to a rental company operating at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. By the time investigators followed the lead, Moore-Real had returned the vehicle to the company. The business then provided the car to detectives, according to the district attorney’s office, giving police direct access to the vehicle tied to the fatal encounter.

The recovered car was one part of a broader evidentiary picture. Authorities emphasized the surveillance recordings because Moore-Real gave investigators an account that differed from the prosecution’s interpretation of what the cameras showed. According to the district attorney’s office, Moore-Real told police she had not seen anyone in front of the vehicle and had not intended to hit anyone. Prosecutors said the video contradicted that statement. Rather than depending only on competing recollections from people involved in an emotional dispute, the state was able to present video from multiple locations, the license-plate photograph and records that led detectives to the rental vehicle.

The case proceeded in DeKalb County Superior Court under six felony counts. Court calendars before trial listed Moore-Real as charged with malice murder, felony murder, three aggravated-assault counts and first-degree cruelty to children. On Aug. 7, a jury found her guilty on all six counts, according to the district attorney’s office. The jury verdict is significant because at least one secondary report later described Moore-Real as having pleaded guilty. The district attorney’s account, official court material and other local reporting instead identify the outcome as a conviction following a jury trial.

Barrie sentenced Moore-Real on Sept. 1, about 11 months after Baker’s death. The judge imposed life with the possibility of parole plus an additional 10 years. The public material reviewed for this report does not include a complete sentencing transcript, so it does not support attributing specific remarks to Barrie, Moore-Real or Baker’s family. It also does not provide a detailed count-by-count explanation showing precisely how every portion of the sentence was structured. The confirmed result is the life term with parole eligibility and the additional 10-year sentence announced after the convictions.

The case reached sentencing after prosecutors persuaded jurors that the final collision was intentional rather than accidental. That distinction was central because Moore-Real’s statement to investigators denied that she meant to hit anyone. Prosecutors relied on the direction of the vehicle, the sequence of returns to the motel and the surveillance footage to challenge that version. The jury’s verdict represented its determination after trial, replacing the earlier stage of the case in which the allegations had not yet been adjudicated. Moore-Real is therefore no longer merely accused in Baker’s death; she stands convicted of the offenses returned by the jury.

The case also contains questions that the reviewed public record does not answer. Authorities have not publicly identified the former boyfriend whose relationship was described as part of the dispute. The sources reviewed do not establish whether he was charged for firing toward Moore-Real’s car before she returned to the motel. They also do not establish whether prosecutors pursued any separate case arising from the initial ramming of the relative’s vehicle beyond the counts included in Moore-Real’s prosecution. Those gaps do not alter the trial outcome but remain unresolved in publicly available reporting.

Nearly a year after Baker was killed, the case has reached its first major endpoint in court. Moore-Real was convicted by a DeKalb County jury and sentenced to life with the possibility of parole plus 10 years. The public record reviewed for this report does not show that those convictions or the sentence have since been overturned or modified.

Author note: Last updated October 19, 2026.