Attorneys for Brad Bishop, who was 15 when accused of murdering his step-grandfather in south Richmond County, will raise the defense Bishop suffered from “battered person syndrome” at the hands of victim Victor Perkins.
Now 20, Bishop has been in jail since 2018 on charges of malice murder, felony murder and armed robbery in the Aug. 18, 2018, death of Victor Leon “Vic” Perkins, who was 61. Bishop is scheduled for trial next month.
During Nov. 20 hearings on several defense motions in Richmond County Superior Court, Violent Crimes Assistant District Attorney Keagan Waystack said Bishop fired a shotgun into the back of Perkins’ head as the elder man looked at Facebook.
According to his indictment, Bishop killed Perkins with the plan to steal from him three handguns, three shotguns and a 1997 SUV.
In a 911 call, Bishop said “I killed my Pa,” and was sure he was dead, prosecutors said.
Superior Court Judge Jesse Stone denied Bishop a bond but agreed to allow licensed clinical social worker Dawn Jett to testify as an expert witness about battered person syndrome and whether Bishop’s experience with Perkins helped drive him to kill.
Jennifer Cross with the Augusta Circuit Public Defender’s Office has represented Bishop since 2020. She brought in Jett to testify as an expert witness about battered person syndrome in the trial of Sandra Dales.
A jury found Dales, accused of killing her husband and burying his body to conceal the death, guilty of felony murder.
Cross’ court filings in Bishop’s case indicate the Department of Family and Children Services and Richmond County law enforcement had been involved in Bishop’s life, and that he had brushes with juvenile court.
But records of prior abuse allegations against Perkins, including one that led to Bishop’s brief removal from his custody, as well as records of abuse by others entrusted with Bishop’s care, were reported as lost, the filings said.
In a 2022 child support recovery action, the Georgia Department of Human Services said the mother of Bishop and his half-brother hadn’t paid court-ordered child support of $50 a month since 2005, when Bishop was two.
In a motion to suppress statements Bishop made to police, Cross argued the teen had a language disorder and needed access to more knowledgeable adults during his interrogation.
Bishop had previously been thrown from a vehicle, driven by an intoxicated Perkins, which rolled over Bishop and crushed his pelvis, another filing said.
The public defender’s office is seeking funds to pay for an MRI to determine if other brain injuries from abuse had affected his behavior, Cross told the court.
At Charles Webster Detention Center, where inmates routinely shank one another and violence between them and staff is common, the 5-foot, one-inch Bishop hasn’t had any new criminal charges, Cross said.
Bishop spent his first two years jailed at the Regional Youth Detention Center.
On the bond motion, Stone refused to release Bishop until trial to Blount Beginnings, a service for defendants transitioning in and out of the penal system.
With no family in the area and the short time until his trial, Bishop remains a flight risk and potential danger to the community, he said.
During the hearings, Waystack grilled Jett about her use of a danger assessment, a tool intended to gauge the current risk of violence between heterosexual romantic couples, versus from someone who died years earlier.
Jett eventually agreed the assessment was the wrong one to use but said she didn’t know of a more reliable test for battered children.
The assessment gave Bishop points for enduring repeated abuse from Perkins, including sexual abuse. Jett testified she knew of no other reports of sexual abuse prior to her March interview with Bishop.
Perkins, 61, had been an Augusta resident since 1982, according to his obituary. He graduated from Purdue University in Indiana and had worked as an aviation mechanic.
His hobbies included guns, hunting, dogs and working on cars, it said. His wife Gloria Perkins, who was Brad Bishop’s grandmother, died in 2012.
The household lived in a mobile home on McNutt Road, a remote area about nine miles south of Augusta Regional Airport.
