McRAE-HELENA, Ga. (AP) — A man has pleaded guilty to murdering a Georgia couple found fatally shot nearly a decade ago after being lured to a rural county by a false offer to sell them a classic car.

Ronnie “Jay” Towns pleaded guilty Monday in Telfair County Superior Court to two counts of malice murder in the January 2015 killings of Bud and June Runion.

Superior Court Judge Sara Wall sentenced Towns to life in prison with no chance of parole, WMAZ-TV reported. Towns's plea spared him from a possible death sentence if he had been convicted by a jury.

Investigators said the Runions traveled more than three hours from their home in Marietta outside Atlanta to Telfair County expecting to buy a 1966 Ford Mustang from someone who contacted 69-year-old Bud Runion in response to an ad on the website Craigslist. Instead, they were robbed and fatally shot. Authorities found their bodies beside a county road.

Towns was arrested a few days later and charged with armed robbery and murder. His case stalled after Georgia courts threw out Towns’ first indictment over problems with how the grand jury was selected. Towns was indicted for a second time in 2020, and the COVID-19 pandemic caused further delays.

“This has been an extremely long 10 years,” the judge said during Towns' plea hearing.

New evidence i n the Runions' deaths surfaced unexpectedly last April, when someone using a magnet to fish for metal objects in a creek pulled up a .22-caliber rifle and a bag containing a cellphone as well as a pair of driver's licenses and credit cards that belonged to the Runions.

District Attorney Tim Vaughn of the Oconee Judicial Circuit said the new evidence strengthened his case against Towns.

The Runions' daughter, Brittany Patterson, told The Associated Press in 2015 that her father traveled to Telfair County hoping to buy a piece of his youth, a 1966 Mustang convertible like one he had purchased after returning from the Vietnam War decades earlier.

In their community north of Atlanta, the Runions ran a homespun charity they called “Bud's Bicycles” that donated refurbished bikes, school supplies, coats, blankets and food to people in need.

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