DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — “I'll explain later, but if I should disappear today check out Chris's [sic] Griggs."
That was the last text Atlanta pastor Marita Harrell sent her friend along with the man's address on May 18, 2022, before her body was found with multiple stab wounds and partially burned, wrapped in bedding.
Her killer, Christopher Griggs, was convicted of malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, possession of a knife during the commission of a felony, concealing the death of another, tampering with evidence and theft by taking.
Jurors spent three days hearing testimony and evidence before coming up with a guilty verdict in Harrell's death.
Griggs then learned his fate shortly after the verdict, where DeKalb County Superior Court Judge Courtney Johnson sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole plus 21 years, according to the district attorney.
Before her death, Harrell worked with Griggs after meeting him through another inmate at the Fulton County Jail in 2021. The two would often exchange conversation as Griggs would call her for counseling and ask for financial support.
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Griggs was released from jail in the spring of 2022, the district attorney's office stated.
Harrell was the pastor of the Connections at Metropolitan UMC in Atlanta. Police reports revealed that she was meeting with Griggs, who had recently been released from jail, for ministry work.
Before meeting with Griggs at his home on Panola Road, she sent her friend the chilling text. According to a release from the district attorney's office, family and friends immediately forwarded the text to police.
Authorities found her body that same night after a 911 caller said a body was found inside a van on Coffee Road in Lithonia. Harrell’s family members had tracked her phone to that location and discovered the gruesome discovery when she did not come home for dinner that night, the district attorney added in the news release.
A SWAT team then went to Griggs' home the next day but found a cleaning crew Griggs hired to clean the carpet inside instead of him.
According to the news release, the carpet in Griggs' bedroom was covered in black oil stains, but crime scene investigators found blood near the stains.
Police later spoke to a woman who rented a room in the home where she said that she was sleeping the previous afternoon when she woke up and Harrell's minivan was in the driveway. Griggs then asked her to follow him in her car so he could drop the van off for someone.
The woman told police she didn't know someone was inside the van. The district attorney said that she followed Griggs to Coffee Road and then gave him a ride back home.
After Harrell's body was found partially burned and wrapped in bedding, authorities later found Griggs' mattress pad freshly washed in the dryer.
The news release stated that Cash App records revealed five large transfers of money from Harrell’s account to Griggs' account shortly after she arrived at his house.
Griggs was then arrested at a nearby motel on May 19, 2022. Shortly before his arrest, Griggs sent a video to the woman he lived with claiming full responsibility for everything that happened, the news release stated.
Before her funeral, her church held a service to honor her where those closest to her cleaved to their most fond memories.
"We were angry, we were hurt, we asked questions. But as believers, as children of God, we know what he is, as I said the great I am. And we just look to him," church member Dorris Bolden said. "She had that smile, that radiant smile at all times. She believed in her mission and her goal was to reach out to people, all people."
According to her Connections at Metropolitan Bio, Harrell lived in the city for more than 30 years. She graduated from Emory's Candler School of Theology with a Master of Divinity degree in 2014.
According to an online obituary, Harrell was laid to rest on June 10, 2022.
