Travis McMichael, his father Greg and their neighbor William “Roddie” Brown were each found guilty on multiple counts of murder in the February 2020 killing of Ahmaud Arbery. The video above shows Glynn County Superior Court Judge Timothy Walmsley reading out the verdicts.
Travis was found guilty on all of his charges, including murder with malice, the most serious one. As his verdict was read, Travis lowered his head to his chest, his attorney’s arm around him. As he stood to leave after the verdict, he mouthed “love you” to his mother in the courtroom.
Moments after the guilty murder verdicts were announced, Arbery’s father, Marcus Arbery Sr., was seen crying and hugging supporters outside the courtroom.
“He didn’t do nothing,” the father said, “but run and dream.” Meanwhile Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, thanked the crowd gathered outside the courthouse. She said she did not think she would see this day.
“It’s been a long fight. It’s been a hard fight. But God is good,” Cooper-Jones said. “And now Quez, which you know him as Ahmaud, I know him as Quez. He will now rest in peace.”
The three face minimum sentences of life in prison. It is up to the judge to decide whether that comes with or without the possibility of parole.
The verdict, delivered Wednesday afternoon, came after about 10 hours of jury deliberations. Wednesday morning, the jury asked to see the cellphone video, taken by Brown, of Travis shooting and killing Arbery. The shooting happened after the McMichaels grabbed guns and jumped in a pickup truck to pursue Arbery after seeing him running in their neighborhood. They believed he was a burglar leaving the scene of a burglary, and Travis shot him when he resisted a citizen’s arrest.
The jury asked to see two versions of the video Wednesday morning — the original and one that investigators enhanced to reduce shadows — three times apiece. They also asked to listen to one of the 911 calls that one of the defendants made from the bed of a pickup truck about 30 seconds before the shooting.
The three men, who are all white, are facing a separate hate crime trial in February. Although prosecutors didn’t argue that racism motivated Arbery’s murder, federal authorities accused the three of chasing and killing Arbery because he was black.