A man has been sentenced to life in prison for the 2023 murder of a woman in Rabun County.
Keegan Cleve Plumer Phillips, III, age 25, pleaded guilty on Monday in Rabun County Superior Court to charges including murder and aggravated assault in the death of Martha Angela Ledford. He is one of two men facing charges in the case.
The case started on August 7, 2023 when authorities found Ledford's body in the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest. The next day, Phillips had already been identified as a suspect, and a manhunt ensued in Gillsville after Phillips was spotted there by local authorities. He was eventually arrested in eastern Hall County that evening.
That same night, authorities arrested Robert Lee Peppers, age 62 of Lula, also on charges related to Ledford's death.
Rabun County court documents indicate that Phillips strangled Ledford to death using a belt some time between July 28 and August 4, 2023. He then concealed her body, including severing her head and abandoning it in an area near Hall Lane in Rabun County.
Phillips was sentenced Monday by Rabun County Superior Court Judge Brian M. Rickman to life in prison, along with consecutive three-year sentences for the two charges of abandonment of a dead body that Phillips also pleaded guilty to.
