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Man convicted of beating Publix employee to death with baseball bat

It was days before Christmas. The grandmother's body was dumped behind a Waffle House.

FULTON COUNTY, Ga. — It was four days before Christmas in 2017 when De'Asia Page waited outside the Publix in Fairburn, Georgia and asked grocery store employee Toni Abad for a ride, prosecutors said.

Abad said yes. 

Page got Abad, a 58-year-old grandmother, to a small side road off of Cascade Palmetto Highway about 5 miles from the Publix. 

When they arrived, Page's boyfriend, 18-year-old Jared Kemp, came out of the woods with a baseball in hand. He then allegedly broke the driver's side of the window with the bat and then struck Abad several times. 

Prosecutors said Abad begged for her life, but was murdered by Kemp.

Page and Kemp then are accused of putting Abad's body in the trunk of her own car and then leaving the car behind a Waffle House.

When police arrived and opened the trunk, they found Abad's body inside.

Page, who prosecutors said admitted her involvement in the crime to a security guard at a gas station near the murder scene, was arrested on Christmas Eve 2017. She then allegedly gave details of the murder to the lead investigator, and Kemp was arrested. 

This week, a Fulton County jury convicted Kemp of murder, felony murder, armed robbery, hijacking a motor vehicle in the first degree and aggravated assault. He'll be sentenced on Oct. 29.

Page will be tried at a later date.

Abad left behind four sons and five grandchildren. She was described as a dedicated employee, who worked at a Publix an hour from her home because she believed she was needed at that location. 

Dozens of Publix employees attended her funeral wearing their uniforms, family members said.

"Cared more about others than herself. Would do anything for you. Give the shirt off her back if it meant to help somebody," her son Timothy Abad said. "She wasn't a woman of great means, but what she did have, she would give to you to help."

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