Chattanooga man sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for malice murder
LMJC District Attorney’s Office
Nicholas Antonio Cheaton, 42, has been sentenced to serve the remainder of his life in the Georgia Department of Corrections without the possibility of parole, plus an additional 45 years for the murder of William Jones, a 39-year-old man from Chickamauga.
According to the LMJC District Attorney’s Office, evidence showed that William Jones’ mother arrived at her son’s house to pick him up for an appointment and found his burned body inside the home on March 14, 2025.
Portions of Jones’ residence had been set on fire, and several items, including Jones’ cell phone, were missing. It was later determined that Jones had been murdered by a gunshot to his head.
Several hours after Jones’ body was found, a family fishing in Chattanooga near Booker T. Washington State Park located Jones’ cell phone near the bank of the Tennessee River and contacted Jones’ family from Jones’ phone in an attempt to return it to the owner.
They say text messages recovered by law enforcement officers from Jones’ phone revealed that Cheaton was the last person Jones communicated with in the minutes and hours before his murder, and
that Jones had invited Cheaton to his home on the night he was murdered.
Law enforcement officers obtained cell tower records for both Cheaton and Jones’ cellular devices.
The tower records revealed that Cheaton had been at Jones’ house multiple times in the early morning hours of March 14th. During the first trip, Cheaton shot Jones and took Jones’ cell phone from
the residence.
They say after murdering Jones, Cheaton attempted to send himself several thousand dollars from Jones’ CashApp account linked to Jones’ phone. Cheaton then left Jones’ residence and traveled back to the Chattanooga area, where he turned off Jones’ phone and attempted to throw it into the Tennessee River. However, the phone only landed on the riverbank, where it was located by the fishing group later that day, the LMJC District Attorney’s Office says.
Cheaton then returned to Jones’ residence a second time and stole multiple items from his home, including electric tools, firearms, and electronic equipment.
Cheaton then set fire to Jones’ body and attempted to set the residence on fire. Cheaton’s Apple iCloud records showed that after the second trip to Jones’ residence, Cheaton immediately began messaging contacts on his phone trying to sell Jones’ firearms.
Later in the day on March 14th, Cheaton asked a woman to accompany him to a local pawnshop, where she attempted to pawn several pieces of Jones’ stolen property.
Cheaton was apprehended by law enforcement officers on March 21st. When he was arrested, law enforcement officers discovered he had been driving a rental vehicle during the time of the murder
that was equipped with a GPS tracking device. Law enforcement officers obtained the device, which showed Cheaton’s whereabouts, and confirmed that he was at Jones’ house multiple times on the night of the murder, that he had stopped at the area where Jones’ phone was dumped, and that he had been to the local pawnshop where the stolen items were pawned.
After murdering Jones, Cheaton then took a trip for several days to Daytona Beach, Florida.
At the time of his arrest, DNA was obtained from Cheaton, and it was a match to DNA obtained from a cigarette left at the crime scene.
The LMJC District Attorney’s Office says on June 3, 2026, Judge Don W. Thompson found Cheaton guilty of the offenses of Malice Murder, Felony Murder, Aggravated Assault, Possession of a Firearm During the Commission of a Felony, Arson in the First Degree, Concealing the Death of Another, and Possession of a Firearm by Convicted Felon and immediately sentenced him to serve the remainder of his life in prison without the possibility of parole, plus an additional 45 years.
