Martin Blackwell of Georgia on Wednesday was sentenced to 40 years imprisonment after he poured boiling water on a gay couple he caught sleeping together.
On Feb. 12, Martin Blackwell found his girlfriend’s son and a friend sleeping together after the couple worked an overnight shift.
Angry and disgusted at the same-sex couple, he filled up a pot with boiling water, soaked the two in bed and yelled, “get out of my house with all that gay.”
The 48-year-old, who plead guilty to the charges, had thrown the scalding hot water on Anthony Gooden and Marquez Tolbert in the early hours of February 12.
“You were soulless, malicious and a violent person on February 12,” judge Henry Newkirk told him on Wednesday’
“You had so many outs where the voice of reason could’ve taken over.”
“I woke up to the most unimaginable pain in my entire life,” Tolbert, who was scalded said during his tearful testimony. “I’m wondering why I’m in so much pain. I’m wondering why I’m wet.”
Tolbert stayed for 10 days in the hospital, while Gooden was there for a month, including two weeks in a coma.
The 48-year-old was sentenced to 40 years in prison, after being found guilty on all charges although his defense counsel argued he wasn’t being hateful or malicious, and framed the attack as a lone lapse of judgment. .
“I’m ecstatic,” Tolbert told reporters. “I think justice has been served.”
