An Augusta man will spend the rest of his life in prison for killing his brother and sister-in-law last year.
The trial of Tony Brooks Horne, 47, lasted less than two days after jury selection Monday. The Richmond County jury found Horne guilty of all charges: Two counts each of malice murder, felony murder and possessing a firearm while committing a felony.
Horne was accused of shooting his brother, William Lamar Horne, 49, and his brother’s wife, Carol McMillon Horne, 52, with a handgun on the day before Thanksgiving last year.
Assistant District Attorney William Hammond said in opening statements that Tony Horne went into his brother’s bedroom and shot the couple in the head while they slept.
The couple, Horne as well as the brothers’ father all lived together in a Mystic Lane mobile home, according to court records.
Evidence would include statements Carol Horne wrote before she died expressing “terror” caused by Tony Horne in the household, Hammond said. Horne sought revenge on family members he said stole from him, he said.
Representing Horne, defense attorney Zariya Lagroon asked the jury to look at who stood to gain from the evidence and whether the state had proved its case for murder.
William Horne went by “Shane” because that’s what his mother wanted to name him, his daughter, Taylor Hayes, testified Tuesday.
Hayes had received text messages from her stepmother warning “she was afraid” of Hayes bringing her children around Tony Horne, she said.
Hayes said she discovered her stepmother’s journal after the killings. Carol Horne tended to “write everything down,” she said.
In the journal, she wrote about Tony Horne having a gun and accusing family members of stealing his money, according to court records.
Senior Superior Court Judge Daniel J. Craig allowed the written statements, considered “hearsay evidence,” to be admitted at trial.
In Georgia, a victim’s statements may be allowed as an exception to the hearsay rule if the defendant made the victim unavailable as a witness and the statements appear trustworthy due to their being entries in a personal journal.
Craig sentenced Horne to life in prison without the possibility of parole on the murder charges as well as five years in prison each, to serve consecutively, on the firearm counts.
