The evidence prosecutors presented showed a sustained attack on Amber Kelly, not a brief loss of control.
ATLANTA, Ga. — A Georgia jury convicted Mamadi Tambajang after prosecutors argued that the beating death of Amber Kelly was the result of escalating domestic violence, rejecting a defense claim that he “snapped” after being provoked.
The case mattered because that short defense phrase became the central dispute at trial. Prosecutors said the evidence showed repeated violence, serious injuries and a long delay before police were notified. Defense lawyers argued Tambajang lost control in the moment. Once jurors sided with the state, the court moved to sentencing, and the Public Defender’s Office said afterward that it had filed a motion for a new trial, setting up the next stage of litigation.
The defense theme came into public view through the prosecutors’ own description of it. Assistant District Attorney Jazmin Dilligard said Tambajang’s position was that he “snapped” and was provoked into attacking Kelly. That argument tried to narrow jurors’ focus to a single encounter inside the apartment. Prosecutors widened the frame. They pointed to what they said was the severity of the beating, Kelly’s earlier reports of violence and Tambajang’s conduct after the assault. Rather than seeking emergency help, they said, he left and only later came to police. In that clash of narratives, the question for jurors was not simply whether Tambajang caused Kelly’s death, but whether the killing looked like a sudden break or the fatal end of a longer pattern.
The physical and timing evidence gave prosecutors much of their force. Baysah said Kelly suffered more than 25 blunt-force injuries and described the scene as horrific. Investigators said Tambajang came to Sandy Springs police headquarters on May 15, 2024, and said he had hurt Kelly and did not know whether she was dead or alive. Officers then went to the apartment and found her dead. Prosecutors later said they believed the killing had happened a day or two earlier. They also said Tambajang traveled to his mother’s home in South Carolina before returning to Georgia and surrendering. That sequence became important because it let the state argue the case included delay, movement and reflection after the assault rather than an instant call for aid in the aftermath of a chaotic event.
Prosecutors also used earlier records to argue intent and foreseeability. They said Kelly had called 911 in 2023 and reported that Tambajang was violent and had threatened to murder her twice in one week. By the time she died, they added, he was out on bond in two other cases involving her in Gwinnett County. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis later called the case a classic example of domestic violence and said the violence had become more abusive over time. Those facts helped the prosecution challenge the idea that Kelly’s death came from a single provoked outburst. Instead, the state asked jurors to see a continuing pattern of intimidation and assault that had already produced police contact before the killing at the Sandy Springs apartment.
The jury’s verdict in March 2026 ended the trial fight over that theory but started the post-conviction phase. Local reports said Tambajang was convicted of murder and related counts, then sentenced to life with the possibility of parole plus 20 years. A spokesman for the Fulton County Public Defender’s Office said defense attorneys had put on a zealous defense and would continue to advocate for Tambajang after conviction. The motion for a new trial is now the most immediate legal step. That filing can be used to challenge rulings made during the trial, raise issues about evidence or procedure, and preserve arguments for appeal if the trial judge denies relief.
Outside the legal arguments, the story remained rooted in the loss described by Kelly’s relatives. Her mother, Sharon Henderson, said learning of her daughter’s death felt as though her heart stopped. Family members said they had told Kelly to leave the relationship, but said she believed Tambajang could be a good man. Those accounts did not decide the legal issues before the jury, yet they sharpened the human contrast at the center of the case: a courtroom debate over intent and provocation on one side, and a family’s account of fear, hope and irreversible loss on the other.
Currently, the conviction stands, the sentence has been imposed and the defense has moved into post-trial challenges. The next milestone will come when the Fulton County trial court addresses the motion for a new trial.
Author note: Last updated April 17, 2026.