Prosecutors said the dispute began over a $30 loan and a borrowed revolver in Jonesboro.

JONESBORO, Ga. — A conviction was handed down to Joe Link by a A Clayton County jury on Feb. 27 in the 2023 shooting death of his longtime friend Coybern Jones Jr., ending a case that centered on whether a struggle over an old revolver near a cemetery was murder or an accident.

The verdict closed a case that had drawn attention in Jonesboro because the two men had known each other for about 30 years and were described in court as best friends. Prosecutors said the shooting grew out of a small debt and a demand that Jones return a borrowed gun. Defense lawyer Erin King argued the weapon fired during a struggle and that Link panicked, but jurors found him guilty of felony murder and aggravated assault. He was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole.

Testimony traced the case back to Oct. 30, 2023, when Jones and Link met in Jonesboro after an argument over money and a firearm. Assistant District Attorney Brianna Jordan told jurors the men had been close for years and spent time together playing pool, cards and dominoes. That day, she said, they argued at an Exxon gas station before the confrontation moved to a nearby road by a cemetery. Jonesboro police later found Jones, 68, lying in the roadway with a gunshot wound to the neck. A detective testified the revolver was recovered 36 feet from the body, in front of a grave marker. Jordan told jurors the evidence would show the shooting was deliberate. King answered with a different account, saying there had been a tussle over the weapon and that the shot was unplanned.

The courtroom fight turned on what happened in those final moments and what physical evidence could prove. Prosecutors said Link first threatened Jones, then searched for him with a pipe before the shooting. Former Jonesboro police Lt. Christopher Cato testified that Link had sent a message saying he would “mess him up,” and prosecutors used that statement to argue there was intent before the men reached the cemetery road. In a police interview shown to jurors, Link first denied shooting Jones. He later said he confronted Jones to get back the pistol he had loaned him. According to that account, Jones struck him with a walking stick, the men grappled, and the gun went off as Link tried to point it away. When Cato asked why he did not call 911 for his best friend, prosecutors used the question to press their theory that Link left Jones in the road instead of seeking help. The record made public during trial did not resolve every movement in the struggle, but jurors were asked to decide whether the shooting itself was intentional.

The case also carried weight because of who Jones was in the community. In the days after the killing, family members and a Jonesboro mayoral candidate said Jones had been helping with a local campaign. Arlene Charles said he drove around with her signs and backed her effort even though she had not formally asked him to do so. Relatives described him as a disabled veteran with PTSD who could be loud but was not violent. His sister said he “would not have hurt a flea,” a remark that underscored the sharp contrast between the image his family offered and the violent end described by police. Jonesboro police said the fatal encounter happened near Johnson Street and Woodland Drive after the gas station dispute. The body was discovered in the road near the cemetery Monday evening. That setting became part of the case narrative from the first arrest through the trial, with prosecutors pointing to the isolated location and the distance between the body and the revolver as signs that the confrontation had already turned deadly by the time officers arrived.

Defense lawyers focused on the age and design of the weapon, trying to raise doubt about whether a trigger pull was necessary. A firearms examiner from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation testified that the revolver was made before 1968. Under questioning from King, the examiner said such a gun can discharge without force being applied to the trigger. That testimony gave the defense a path to argue that a malfunction or unstable movement during a struggle could explain the shot that killed Jones. Prosecutors countered with other evidence, including DNA testimony that linked Link to the gun. In the later stages of trial, prosecutors said Link’s DNA was found on the weapon, while a DNA analyst could not identify two other profiles. Jurors also saw Link’s own statements in his police interview, which shifted from a denial to an admission that he confronted Jones over the gun and the money. By the time of closing arguments, the central legal question was narrow and direct: whether the state had proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Link committed murder, or whether the defense had raised enough doubt for jurors to see the death as a tragic accident during a fight.

The verdict came after closing arguments on a Friday morning and only a few hours of deliberation. Jurors acquitted Link of malice murder but convicted him of felony murder and aggravated assault, according to courtroom reporting. The distinction mattered. A felony murder conviction does not require jurors to find the same level of intent as malice murder, but it still carries the weight of a homicide verdict tied to an underlying felony. Soon after the guilty verdicts were read, the court sentenced Link to life with the possibility of parole. The outcome brought formal resolution to the criminal case even as it left deep personal damage in its wake. Jones was gone, and the man described as his best friend for three decades was headed to prison. The public record available at trial did not answer every emotional question about how the friendship broke apart so completely, but the legal process had reached its conclusion on the main issue before the jury.

There was little dispute in court about one point: the two men had shared years of ordinary routines before the violence. Jordan called them longtime friends. King used almost the same image to show how close they had once been, telling jurors they played pool, cards and dominoes together. That common ground gave the case a different texture from a stranger-on-stranger killing. It asked jurors to weigh a death that followed a mundane argument over $30 and a borrowed pistol, then to decide what mattered more: the defense claim of a panicked struggle, or the prosecution’s picture of a threatened man hunted down near a cemetery road. For family members, the verdict marked justice. For the community, it closed a case that began with a body in the road and months of questions about how two men who spent decades together ended in gunfire.

The case now stands with Link convicted and serving a life sentence with the possibility of parole. Unless new motions or appeals change the record, the next milestone will come in post trial filings as defense lawyers weigh their options.

Author note: Last updated March 24, 2026.