BRUNSWICK, Ga. (AP) -- A pair of teenagers was arrested Friday and accused of fatally shooting a 13-month-old baby in the face and wounding his mother during their morning stroll through a leafy, historic neighborhood in southeast Georgia.
Sherry West had just been to the post office a few blocks from her apartment Thursday morning and was pushing her son, Antonio, in his stroller as they walked past gnarled oak trees and blooming azaleas in the coastal city of Brunswick.
West said a tall, skinny teenager, accompanied by a smaller boy, asked her for money.
"He asked me for money and I said I didn't have it," she told The Associated Press Friday from her apartment, which was scattered with her son's toys and movies.
"When you have a baby, you spend all your money on babies. They're expensive. And he kept asking and I just said `I don't have it.' And he said, `Do you want me to kill your baby?' And I said, `No, don't kill my baby!'"
Authorities said one of the teens fired four shots, grazing West's ear and striking her in the leg, before he walked around to the stroller and shot the baby in the face.
Seventeen-year-old De'Marquis Elkins is charged as an adult with first-degree murder, along with a 14-year-old who was not identified because he is a juvenile, Police Chief Tobe Green said. It wasn't immediately clear whether the boys had attorneys.
Police announced the arrest Friday afternoon after combing school records and canvassing neighborhoods searching for the pair. The chief said the motive of the "horrendous act" was still under investigation and the weapon had not been found.
"I feel glad that justice will be served," West said. "It's not something I'm going to live with very well. I'm just glad they caught him."
West said detectives showed her photographs of about 24 young men. She pointed to one, saying he looked like the gunman.
"After I picked him, they said they had him in custody," West said. "It looked just like him. So I think we got our man."
West said she thought the other suspect looked much younger: "That little boy did not look 14."
News from The Associated Press
Personally, I hope they get punished to the full extent of the law, if they are tried and found guilty. Little scumbags.
I've been to Brunswick a few times. It's a completely bigoted, backwards town. It wouldn't surprise me at all if racial slurs were used which provoked the attack. Let's allow the facts to come to light before we rally the lynch mobs here.
Doing life as prison pass-arounds works for me for those two
Yes, by all means, a racial slur is a good reason to kill someone's baby. For God's sake.:roll:
I'd personally opt for the death penalty.
It wouldn't surprise me at all if racial slurs were used which provoked the attack.
I'm not condoning it, just saying there's probably more to the story.
If they are found guilty, they deserve the highest sentence allowable.
That said, this whole story doesn't ring true with me. The only thing that has been consistent is the fact that there is a dead baby, and someone shot the poor little thing. The mother seems... off. If I'd just seen someone slaughter my baby, I wouldn't be giving long, rambling interviews within hours. Everything she said seemed so practiced, so nonsensical (the way she made a big deal of running into a driveway with her baby, after the perps had left instead of screaming for help, for example). She seemed more nervous than griefstricken... then again, people deal with grief differently.
All I know is that when I saw her, my brain whispered "shades of Susan Smith." If the police can't find the murder weapon and tie it to their "suspects", you can color me skeptical about the entire quick-turnaround arrest based on... well, based on nothing that's been made public beyond they fit the descriptions.
Yeah, I'm cynical. I know. But I'll wait and see what happens on this, because I'm not getting the "aha, justice will now be done" vibe.
ecofarm;1061601502That smells Poe.[/QUOTE said:everything he writes does.
If they are found guilty, they deserve the highest sentence allowable.
That said, this whole story doesn't ring true with me. The only thing that has been consistent is the fact that there is a dead baby, and someone shot the poor little thing. The mother seems... off. If I'd just seen someone slaughter my baby, I wouldn't be giving long, rambling interviews within hours. Everything she said seemed so practiced, so nonsensical (the way she made a big deal of running into a driveway with her baby, after the perps had left instead of screaming for help, for example). She seemed more nervous than griefstricken... then again, people deal with grief differently.
All I know is that when I saw her, my brain whispered "shades of Susan Smith." If the police can't find the murder weapon and tie it to their "suspects", you can color me skeptical about the entire quick-turnaround arrest based on... well, based on nothing that's been made public beyond they fit the descriptions.
Yeah, I'm cynical. I know. But I'll wait and see what happens on this, because I'm not getting the "aha, justice will now be done" vibe.
If they are found guilty, they deserve the highest sentence allowable.
That said, this whole story doesn't ring true with me. The only thing that has been consistent is the fact that there is a dead baby, and someone shot the poor little thing. The mother seems... off. If I'd just seen someone slaughter my baby, I wouldn't be giving long, rambling interviews within hours. Everything she said seemed so practiced, so nonsensical (the way she made a big deal of running into a driveway with her baby, after the perps had left instead of screaming for help, for example). She seemed more nervous than griefstricken... then again, people deal with grief differently.
All I know is that when I saw her, my brain whispered "shades of Susan Smith." If the police can't find the murder weapon and tie it to their "suspects", you can color me skeptical about the entire quick-turnaround arrest based on... well, based on nothing that's been made public beyond they fit the descriptions.
Yeah, I'm cynical. I know. But I'll wait and see what happens on this, because I'm not getting the "aha, justice will now be done" vibe.
Well as soon I post my comment I read your comment and that does sound odd. I would be a basket case if I just saw my 13 month old killed. Or was she in a state of shock?
If they are found guilty, they deserve the highest sentence allowable.
That said, this whole story doesn't ring true with me. The only thing that has been consistent is the fact that there is a dead baby, and someone shot the poor little thing. The mother seems... off. If I'd just seen someone slaughter my baby, I wouldn't be giving long, rambling interviews within hours. Everything she said seemed so practiced, so nonsensical (the way she made a big deal of running into a driveway with her baby, after the perps had left instead of screaming for help, for example). She seemed more nervous than griefstricken... then again, people deal with grief differently.
All I know is that when I saw her, my brain whispered "shades of Susan Smith." If the police can't find the murder weapon and tie it to their "suspects", you can color me skeptical about the entire quick-turnaround arrest based on... well, based on nothing that's been made public beyond they fit the descriptions.
Yeah, I'm cynical. I know. But I'll wait and see what happens on this, because I'm not getting the "aha, justice will now be done" vibe.
Interesting. I haven't seen her interviewed. Did the cops check her out as a sucpect, to your knowledge?
A white woman kills her child and says an African-American is responsible? Nah, couldn't be.
I'm telling you guys, Brunswick is a plantation community.
A white woman kills her child and says an African-American is responsible? Nah, couldn't be.
I'm telling you guys, Brunswick is a plantation community.
A white woman kills her child and says an African-American is responsible? Nah, couldn't be.
West said detectives showed her photographs of about 24 young men. She pointed to one, saying he looked like the gunman.
"After I picked him, they said they had him in custody," West said. "It looked just like him. So I think we got our man."
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