Cumming Man Sentenced To Life For Killing Ex In Front Of Children

A judge sentenced Cumming man Christopher Erdman to life in prison without the possibility of parole Friday after he accepted the deal.

Prosecutors said they offered him this option to protect his 5-year-old daughter from having to testify to the murder, which allowed Erdman to avoid the death penalty originally proposed.

Erdman killed ex-girlfriend Shannon Lawrence of Canton in a Wells Fargo parking lot in Milton June 5, 2011. 

He pled guilty in the killing of the 25-year-old, who previously sought a restraining order against him, claiming he was violent.

Erdman also pled guilty in 2011 for an unrelated charge of disorderly conduct after a mild scrap with a Decatur security guard. 

He allegedly grabbed the guard, with his daughter still on his shoulders, after repeatedly refusing to comply with orders that he move his bicycle. There were no injuries in that incident.

Sheila Ross, Fulton County prosecutor, said that Erdman shot his former girlfriend in the pelvis once, once in the chest – which penetrated her lungs – and twice in the back of the head. She was found face down in the parking lot.

Her children, a son and daughter who were 11 months and 2 years old respectively at the time, looked on as the crime occurred. 

Erdman allegedly stalked and harassed Lawrence on several occasions beforehand.  

When the two exchanged children as part of a custody deal, it was supposed to be supervised. No supervisor was present when the murder occurred.

Lawrence’s father, Randy Lawrence, said that his granddaughter continues to have nightmares about the killing.

"She'll never forget seeing, as she said to me, mommy lying on the ground with blood coming out of her ears," he told the Atlanta Constitution-Journal.