OPELIKA, Ala. (AP) - A jury in Opelika has convicted an Auburn man of shooting repeatedly into a van at a community college, killing his mother-in-law and wounding his estranged wife.
The jury deliberated about 90 minutes Tuesday before finding Thomas Franklin May III guilty of one count of capital murder and one count of attempted murder.
The jury will reconvene Wednesday to consider whether to recommend that the 37-year-old defendant receive the death penalty or life in prison without parole. The final decision will be up to a judge.
May was arrested April 6, 2011, after he fired into a van at Southern Union Community College in Opelika. His mother-in-law, Brenda Marshall Watson, was killed. His estranged wife, Bethany Mitchell, and her grandmother, Maude Ethell Marshall, were wounded, and the couple’s 4-year-old daughter was injured by broken glass.
Mitchell got a divorce after the shooting and was the first witness in May’s trial. She described how her mother, grandmother and daughter were picking her up from classes at the community college when May pulled alongside their van.
“The defendant opened fire on our vehicle,” she testified.
May drove away after the shooting but returned three hours later and was arrested.
At trial, he pursued a defense of not guilty by reason of mental defect.
A clinical psychologist who tested May at his attorneys’ request, Dr. Ronald Meredith, told jurors Monday that multiple concussions, delusions of grandeur and a mixture of medications created the perfect storm for mental instability. “We found that parts of his brain are simply not working right,” Meredith said.
A clinical psychologist who examined May at the request of prosecutors, Dr. Glen King, said May acted normal during an interview in 2011. “He didn’t show any signs of mental illness,” King said.
In Mitchell’s testimony, she said the couple had not lived together since summer 2010, and May had twice been the target of domestic violence calls to police. She said she obtained a protective order against him the day before the shooting.
When describing the shooting, she said she couldn’t hear all of what her husband was yelling while firing about a dozen shots into the van, but his message was that she couldn’t keep their daughter from him.
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