Martin Blackwell is on trial facing charges including aggravated battery and assault in the February 12 attack that caused severe burns and multiple surgeries for Anthony Gooden and Marquez Tolbert, who were asleep together after working an overnight shift.
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The 48-year-old Blackwell was a long-distance trucker and stayed with his girlfriend, Kim Foster, when he was in town.
Blackwall was said to have poured the pot of boiling water over his girlfriend’s son Anthony Gooden, 23, and his boyfriend Marquez Tolbert, 21, as they napped after work at the home of Gooden’s mother in College Park, Georgia.
Blackwell said he “poured a little hot water on them” but that they’d be fine, Hood testified.
Blackwell was sentenced to 40 years in prison.
Prosecutors described the assault as vicious and premeditated, saying that Blackwell told one of the men “get out of my house with all that gay ****”, according to WSBTV. However, Walker acknowledged that her client deserved to be punished, but asked jurors to find that it was reckless conduct. “It’s not about hate”.
Defense attorney Monique Walker told jurors on Wednesday that the case isn’t about hate but rather is about “old-school thinking”.
The defense didn’t call any witnesses and didn’t present any evidence. He was not charged with a hate crime, though, as Georgia now doesn’t have any bias-crime statutes. The FBI said in March that it had opened a hate crime investigation, but spokesman Kevin Rowson said Wednesday that the agency isn’t commenting on that probe.
Gooden spent almost four weeks in hospital, including two weeks in a medically induced coma.
Tolbert sustained second and third degree burns and spent 10 days at Grady Memorial Hospital after undergoing surgery that took skin from his thigh to replace skin on his back. She said Blackwell made a bad decision but that his actions weren’t hateful or criminal.
Martin Blackwell looked under the kitchen sink to find the largest pot he could to fill with boiling water..
Gooden and Tolbert were severely burned by the attack and said in court they still required assistance eating and managing their lives months after the attack.
“I’m ecstatic”, Tolbert told reporters. He and Gooden remain friends and check in on each other to see how the other is healing, he said.
Fulton County deputy district attorney Fani Willis gestures as she makes her closing arguments during a trial for Martin Blackwell in Atlanta, Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2016.
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