Black-American jogger Ahmaud Arbery’s killers sentenced to life in prison
- Father and son duo Travis McMichael and Gregory McMichael will not be able to seek parole, US judge rules
- The pair, joined by neighbour William ‘Roddie’ Bryan, chased down and shot Arbery, who had been running through their mostly white neighbourhood
A US judge in Georgia sentenced Travis McMichael and his father Gregory McMichael on Friday to life in prison without the possibility of parole for what he called the “chilling” 2020 murder of Ahmaud Arbery, a Black-American man running through their mostly White neighbourhood in the southern state.
Judge Timothy Walmsley also gave a life sentence to their neighbour William “Roddie” Bryan but ruled that he could seek parole after 30 years in prison, the minimum sentence allowed for murder under Georgia law.
Echoing comments made by Arbery’s anguished relatives earlier in the hearing at Glynn County Superior Court, the judge condemned the three men for what he described as their mistake of failing to see Arbery as just another neighbour.
He said he gave the McMichaels the harshest sentence available in part because of their “callous” words and actions captured on a mobile phone video that sparked national outrage when it became public in the summer of 2020.
“It was a chilling, truly disturbing scene,” the judge said of the frame in the video where McMichael begins to lift his shotgun at Arbery while the 25-year-old is about 20 feet away. “I kept coming back to the terror that must have been in the mind of the young man running through Satilla Shores.”
In November, a jury found Gregory McMichael, 66, his son Travis McMichael, 35, and their neighbour Bryan, 52, guilty of murder, aggravated assault, false imprisonment and criminal intent to commit a felony.
