At the conclusion of a three-day trial, a 12-person jury found 54-year-old Leslie Lamont Coleman guilty of aggravated robbery Wednesday in the Jan. 15, 2019 armed robbery of a Circle K convenience store in Shelbyville.  

Coleman and his accomplice, Deontre Cortez Farris, 21, used knives to threaten the store employee. They were arrested Jan. 16, one day after they committed the crime. The entire incident was captured on surveillance cameras in the store. Aggravated robbery is when a deadly weapon is used or if the victim suffers serious injury.  

It is a class B felony punishable by eight to 30 years’ imprisonment, as well as a fine of up to $25,000. Coleman will be sentenced on Jan. 20. Farris confessed to the crime and testified against Coleman. His case has not yet been resolved.  

He was scheduled to appear in court for a review hearing five days after Coleman was found guilty. He could accept a plea deal at the hearing.  

It is likely Coleman will be sentenced to a long term in prison as his past criminal history will be considered by Judge Forest Alexander Durard, Jr. Coleman was sentenced in October 1991 to life in prison in a remarkably similar case. On Dec. 9, 1990, Coleman (who was 24 years old at the time) and his 17-year-old stepbrother, Kenneth Wayne Robinson, Jr., robbed a Jim Dandy Market on Nolensville Pike in Nashville. In that robbery, Coleman reportedly stole a 12-pack of Budweiser.  

Coleman and his stepbrother also stole the store clerk’s car and later abandoned it and burned it. Just why Coleman was free from prison at the time of the Shelbyville crime was not determined through investigation of this court case.  

However, state laws regarding sentencing have changed over the course of those years. In the Shelbyville robbery of the Circle K, Coleman stole an 18-pack of Bud Light. He and his accomplice also stole cartons of cigarettes (L&M menthols and Newports), various vaping supplies and $78 that was in the cash register. Coleman is also accused of stealing a store office.  

The biggest difference between the robbery in Nashville three decades earlier and the Shelbyville robbery is in Nashville, Coleman murdered the 35-year-old store clerk, shooting her three times in the back of the head while she lay on the floor in the back room of the store.  

Coleman initially blamed the murder on his younger stepbrother but he eventually pled guilty to 1st degree murder and especially aggravated robbery.  

Coleman’s teenage stepbrother, Robinson, was found guilty of kidnapping, robbery and for stealing the store clerk’s car but was found not guilty on a murder charge.  

Shelbyville trial details  

Coleman and Farris are accused of robbing the store at around 12:45 a.m. on Jan. 15, 2019.  

Testimony this week included how the pair forced the store’s assistant manager to comply at knifepoint. Coleman, who has denied involvement in the crime, was allegedly the robber observed on surveillance video who was dressed in a white T-shirt and black cargo pants.  

The entire incident was captured on seven surveillance cameras in the store. The store employee had stepped out of the store to take a break and smoke a cigarette and was approached by two men wielding knives. She was ordered back into the store and told to open the safe.  

She explained to the men that opening the safe would take 10 minutes as it is on a timer. To open the safe first one key is used to start the opening timer and after a 10 minute delay a second key is then used to open it.  

While waiting for the safe opening, the two men are seen on video stealing an 18-pack of Bud Lite beer, cartons of cigarettes (L&M menthols and Newports), various vaping supplies and the $78 that was in the cash register.  

Coleman is also accused of stealing a toolbox with tools from the store office. Before the safe delay timer had run its course, a donut delivery truck pulled in and the two men fled the store. The donut delivery driver was later than normal that night.  

“He came at a good time,” the store employee testified. The donut delivery driver recognized that something was wrong. He spotted former sheriff’s deputy Joseph Guthrie, who just happened to be driving by on routine patrol, and alerted him that there was something going on in the Circle K store. Guthrie saw the two perpetrators standing next to a white Dodge sedan parked in the westbound lane of Wartrace Pike/East Depot Street, just down the hill from the store.  

When the deputy approached the Dodge and activated his emergency lights the two men jumped into the vehicle and sped away toward downtown Shelbyville. Guthrie testified Monday that the pursuit reached speeds of “above 80 mph, pretty close to 100.”  

Police and dispatch were not initially aware that the incident was an armed robbery so, following department policy, when the vehicle turned onto Coney Island Road, Guthrie was ordered to terminate the high speed pursuit.  

Guthrie was unable to get the license plate number. There were no suspects immediately but within a couple of hours police had identified Coleman as a suspect. The assistant store manager testified that she had seen a white Dodge Avenger with two black occupants circle through the lot approximately a half hour before the robbery. She noticed that the vehicle was marked with a black “Avenger” decal.  

Approximately an hour after the robbery, around 1:40 a.m., Shelbyville Police Lt. Fred Harvey, “came across” a white Dodge sedan parked at the Magnolia Village apartments on Landers Street. The temperature that January morning was in the 30s. Harvey got out of his patrol vehicle and felt the hood of the Dodge. “It was hot,” he said. He radioed in the license number and it came back registered to Coleman.  

When interviewed in court Monday, the store assistant manger described her emotions during the robbery. Throughout the incident, on the video, she stood with her hands raised and appeared to be calm and collected, but she said calm was not how she felt. She said she was “praying the whole time. I was terrified.”  

“My number one priority was to get them out of there and keep safe,” she said. Immediately after the robbery, the Circle K employee said, she quit her job at the store where she had worked for 2 and 1/2 years.  

She testified that she went to counseling, “a lot for awhile.” She also testified that in a subsequent job she was unable to work alone at night.