Teen enters guilty plea in family killing
Posted: 9:33 PM Sep 10, 2010
Gwinnett Daily Post Reporter: By Josh Green
Email: josh.green@gwinnettdailypost.com
LAWRENCEVILLE — Anthony Terrell Jr.’s motivation to kill his immediate family boiled down to a mother-son dispute over trivial teenage matters: a girl who’d visited their home and his forbidden use of his mother’s cell phone, a prosecutor said.
The Lawrenceville teen pleaded guilty Friday to fatally shooting his mother — a Gwinnett County Sheriff’s Department deputy — and two young sisters in March 2008.
“He never explained any basis for it,” District Attorney Danny Porter said Friday. “He had an argument with his mother and basically spun out of control.”
Gwinnett Superior Court Judge Debra Turner sentenced Terrell, 19, to two consecutive life sentences after he pleaded guilty to killing Joy Deleston, 39, and her daughters, Micaiah, 11, and Jelani, 4.
Porter said Terrell won’t be eligible for parole for at least 30 years.
Terrell admitted to all nine counts in his indictment, which included murder, felony murder and aggravated assault charges. He avoided a third consecutive life sentence by pleading guilty, the worst-case scenario in terms of sentencing, Porter said.
The threshold for the death penalty is age 18 in Georgia. Terrell was 17 when he killed his family.
Terrell’s grandmother pleaded with the court to impose a reduced sentence, which is the only time Terrell cried, Porter said.
“It was a very emotional hearing on the part of everybody but the defendant,” he said.
READ MORE ABOUT THE CRIME AND THE SENTENCE OF ANTHONY TERRELL...
http://www.gwinnettdailypost.com/home/headlines/102677014.html
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