Martin Blackwell, the Georgia man responsible for pouring boiling water over a sleeping gay couple, was given a 40-year prison sentence on Wednesday, August 24.
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A Fulton County judge sentenced 48-year-old Martin Blackwell to 40-years in prison.
Martin Blackwell, who poured boiling water over his girlfriend’s son and his partner as they slept, was convicted on Wednesday of eight counts of aggravated battery and two counts of aggravated assault.
The hate crime occurred in February in the College Park apartment of Gooden’s mother Kim Foster – who was dating Blackwell for three years at the time. At the time of his arrest, Blackwell had said he couldn’t stand the sight of Gooden and Tolbert together.
Both Tolbert and Gooden had disfiguring burns requiring numerous skin grafts.
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She said Blackwell often made inappropriate comments to various members of the household asking about their sex lives and calling them derogatory names and throwing water on them was just an extension of that reckless behavior, Walker said. Tolbert spent 10 days in the hospital undergoing surgery to fix the skin on his back, while Gooden spent five weeks in the hospital receiving treatment, with several of those weeks being in a medically-induced coma.
Recalling the aftermath of the attack, he said: “I’m wondering why I’m in so much pain”.
“You had so many outs where the voice of reason could have taken over”, the judge told Blackwell.
Here’s to hoping this news will come as some consolation to Gooden and Tolbert as they continue to heal. Blackwell did intend to hurt Anthony Gooden and Marquez Tolbert, and was methodical and malicious, assistant district attorney Fani Willis told the jury.
Then Blackwell allegedly yanked him off the mattress and yelled, “Get out of my house with all that gay”, Tolbert recalled to WSBTV. “And it’s a felonious act”, Willis said.
On the day of the attack, Blackwell entered the house, which was owned by Mr Gooden’s mother, and saw the two unconscious men lying next to each other.
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“I think justice has been served”. “It was just a little hot water on them”. Georgia, one of the five states in America, does not have a state hate crime law.
