Moved to Old News — From 11/23 — TP
For Kyle Rittenhouse, George Zimmerman, and others in high-profile homicide cases, claims of self-defense led to acquittals. Will the same be true for a young Black man who killed a white teen in Georgia?
Around 1 a.m. on June 14, 2020, 21-year-old Marc Wilson, who is Black, and his 21-year-old girlfriend, Emma Rigdon, who is white, left a Taco Bell in Statesboro, Georgia. At a stoplight, they pulled up next to a pickup truck. Wilson’s lawyers say that at least one of the white teenagers inside the truck shouted the n-word and “your lives don’t matter.”
Wilson later told police that the teenagers in the pickup truck swerved in front of him, tried to knock his sedan off the highway, and threw an object that impacted the car with a loud sound that made him think they might be shooting at him. Wilson pulled out a gun and fired out his window at the truck. The bullet struck and killed 17-year-old Haley Hutcheson, who was sitting in the pickup’s backseat.
Prosecutors charged him with felony murder and aggravated assault, which carry a maximum sentence of life in prison and the possibility of the death penalty. Wilson claimed self-defense.
“Me and my girlfriend were very scared that night,” Wilson told police later that week, according to a detective’s testimony. “Everything going on in this country, I’m not going to let me and my girl get run off the road.”
Wilson was denied bail because Ogeechee Judicial Circuit Court Judge Michael Muldrew concluded that he “poses a significant threat” to the community.
Dreaming4ever
Article URL : https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/albertsamaha/marc-wilson-self-defense-case