A grand jury has decided not to bring murder charges against a 15-year-old boy who shot and killed his abusive father because he’d ‘had enough’ of watching him beat up his mother.
Tucker Gales shot his father Wesley last October after watching him punch his mother Deborah and kick her in the head in their home on the outskirts of Augusta, Georgia.
The 15-year-old used a .22 rifle and shot his father, who’d been arrested for domestic abuse multiple times, in the head.
When sheriffs arrived at the home, Tucker admitted that he’d shot his father.
He said he’d ‘had enough’ of seeing him beat his mother, and that he also suffered abuse from him.
The teen was arrested for murder and taken to jail but was granted bond and allowed to return home while prosecutors weighed whether or not to charge him.
The case was turned over to a grand jury, but that grand jury decided on Wednesday not to bring charges against the teenager.
District Attorney Bobby Christine said that the decision represented ‘the combined wisdom of our community’.
Friends of the family had launched petitions and a GoFundMe page asking for donations to help the teenager with a potential legal fund.
The page raised $10,000 of its $75,000 target.
Previous local media reports describe some of the abuse Wesley subject his ex-wife, Deborah, too.
In one instance of abuse, he kicked her in the groin and punched her.
Sarah Hensley, the mother of one of Tucker’s friends, told WJBF previously: ‘For a 15-year-old boy that situation seems hopeless and he felt that he had to take matters into is own hands and our hearts are breaking for him.
‘I think our community needs to rally around him and show how much he’s loved and to not be ashamed.’
Another friend said he would often show up at school with bruises on his arms.
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Original Article: Grand jury wont bring charges against 15-year-old boy who killed his dad to stop him abusing his mom | Daily Mail Online
My heart is breaking for this young man. I, too, grew up with a physically and emotionally abusive father who regularly beat me (the youngest and only daughter) as well as my two brothers and our mother. I was about 13 when I first told my brother I thought we should shoot Dad the next time he started beating one of us. Fortunately (for my father), but unfortunately for the rest of us, my brothers were too afraid of my father and I wasn’t going to do it alone. In my 20s, with all of us grown and gone and my father still beating my mother, I begged her to let me pay for a “hit” on him (through my job, I had access to folks willing to pick up the contract). He beat up Mom regularly until she died of cancer at age 72. Dad, waffled between telling people “I never laid a hand on my kids”, and telling us, “You know, things are so bad I think they’d arrest me now for how I punished you kids”. He lived to the ripe old age of 95, which cemented in my head forever the adage, “Only the good die young” . NOTE: When you said that to me, I looked him squarely in the eye and said: “They would’ve arrested you THEN for what you did”.
I am happy beyond words the grand jury “no-billed” this young man. It was the right thing to do. He will, undoubtedly, join my brothers and me in a lifetime of therapy and counseling. Perhaps those in charge of his “Go Fund Me” money will use it to assist him in his search for normalcy.
Review the “tomato patch” murders of the early 90’s. Think those two children who were repeatedly physically abused by their grandfather were convicted of murder. I hope their sentence has been reviewed based on our more enlightened thinking as identified in this case.