A drunken argument over a car turned deadly when Keywan Capers shot and killed a neighbor who had come outside to check on the disturbance. Capers then took the man’s gun, stole his girlfriend’s car, and fled.
Capers pleaded guilty on August 27, 2026 to voluntary manslaughter, aggravated assault, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, theft by taking, and robbery by intimidation in the shooting death of Christopher Matthew Rachalla. Capers was sentenced to 40 years, with the first 20 to serve. A key eyewitness was unable to testify as she is incarcerated in Texas and deemed incompetent.
On March 29, 2023, Capers was at the Brookhaven Road apartment of his girlfriend when, heavily intoxicated, he demanded to drive her car. When she refused, he struck her, and the argument moved outside. Rachalla, hearing the disturbance, came out and confronted Capers, who by then had taken his girlfriend’s car keys. Rachalla was warned that Capers was armed. Rachalla said he was armed too and displayed his own firearm. Capers’s girlfriend went back inside as the confrontation moved to the parking lot in front of the building.
Witnesses in the parking lot told investigators the confrontation ended with Capers shooting Rachalla, taking his firearm, and fleeing in the car. Deputies found Rachalla suffering from gunshot wounds when they responded around 6:30 p.m. A lookout for the vehicle Capers was driving led officers to Capers in Monroe County. After a brief pursuit in which officers fired at the car’s tire, Capers surrendered. He has been held at the Bibb County jail since his arrest.
Capers was sentenced to 20 years to serve for voluntary manslaughter and a concurrent 20 years to serve for robbery by intimidation, along with additional consecutive and concurrent probation terms on the remaining counts, for a total of 40 years. As conditions of his sentence, he is banned from the Macon Judicial Circuit, including Interstate 75, barred from possessing firearms, alcohol, or drugs without a prescription, and ordered to have no contact with his girlfriend or Rachalla’s family.
“Keywan Capers took a man’s life over a car and a pointless argument, then tried to run,” said Macon Judicial Circuit District Attorney Anita Howard. “Even with real challenges in this case, our office secured a sentence that holds him accountable and keeps this community safer.”
This case was prosecuted by Assistant Deputy Chief Jeremy B. Johnson.
