The shooting occurred on the evening of April 14, 2016. He spoke about how he gambled with a mythical figure known in the sheriffs office as the Wood Chipper, because, supposedly, he had used such a device to kill a woman. On April 15, 2016, in the town of Griffin, Georgia. And based on the totality of circumstances, all the facts and circumstances, all the forensics, and the conclusion of the case, as well as the GBI's and the district attorney's recommendation, is no, he did not cause her injuries, Yates concluded in an interview with 11Alive for"Trigger: Who shot the officer's wife.". There was a pool there, too.. We believe he is a danger to her, she told the judge, Tommy Hankinson. Although Gibson had been indicted on fourteen charges, he was allowed to plead guilty, in June, 2017, to only two, for violating his oath of office, and he was granted first-offender status. Notifications can be turned off anytime in the browser settings. With their guns drawn, the officers checked every room in the house. Shortly after Jessica was hospitalized, her aunt Kathy took a photograph of a C-shaped bruise on the back of Jessicas head, and she shared it with the G.B.I. provided images. Community. My dream is that, one day, the Feds show up and say, We want the notebook, he said. In the spring of 2019, child-protective services closed the case and recommended, based on reports submitted by the childrens psychologist, who had seen the boys for twenty-five sessions, that they no longer spend time with Matthew. One, investigators said penetrated Jessica's head and the other the wall. Her neurosurgeon, Paul King, told me, It seemed most likely that someone else shot her., Jessica had an intracranial-pressure monitor inserted into her brain, to measure swelling, and she was put in a medically induced coma. The subsequent investigation was short-lived, with it having been deemed a "civil matter.". He was charged with theft a year later but was released on bail and has never been in jail. He would flash his lights and pull her over, and force her to have sex with him. You cant force her into the truck. (Matthew refused to comment for this story.). The "Sex and the City" alum, 56, took . By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement. In nearly a third of cases, the officers already had a domestic-violence incidentand, in one case, eightin their records. Matthew, grandson of then-sheriff of Spalding County, texts a fellow Griffin Police officer. Woman shot in head says cop husband staged her 'suicide' Jessica and Matthew moved into a house across the street from the sheriff, Wendell Beam, and his wife. I already know it wont.. Boynton, who was . The nurse didnt answer. Matthew called a Griffin police lieutenant for advice. Wheres my baby? Jessica asked, once her breathing tubes were removed. Earlier that night Jessica's husband Matthew headed to Waffle House for a late-night bite with a fellow officer, leaving his service weapon . Making his way outside, seconds later, he calls for assistance over his radio. I know that hes a police officer, and Im not really anybody, she said. agents, asking them to investigate how Jessica had been injured there. Sanders was forty-three years old and the son of a former Republican state representative; he considered himself a happy beneficiary of the good-old-boys system, he told me, and did not do his work in pursuit of political reform. The shooting occurred on the evening of April 14, 2016. The judges are very swayed by their own reactions to each person, Meier said. I know that we got into an argument, but that's about all," she said, not remembering much of what had happened on April 15. He was Spalding County. A Griffin Police Officer's wife herself, the reporter called DeMarco, on Sept. 28, the investigator who was in charge of the investigation for the GBI, to question him about the case and the photo that nagged her, and that for her, called into question how anything they investigated was trustworthy. I was looking for a job and I finally found one. While sifting through pages and pages of the report, a GBI evidence photo caught her attention. I didnt think about getting any other clothes., G.B.I. He had filed nearly a hundred Open Records Act requests about Jessicas shooting, and he shared what he learned with Jessicas family, as well as with The Grip. Jessicas grandmother, Martha, said that initially she had trusted Wendell Beam, whom her husband had known for years, and the G.B.I.s investigative process. Now for a pleasant, modest entry into retirement in Toronto.". Jones passes by a framed portrait hung on the wall. Only eight were fired. A fence separates their house from an open field, where nine cows and two donkeys graze. Few states mandate that custody evaluators have domestic-violence training; judges often characterize the allegations as mudslinging and focus not on their veracity but on which party appears to be the better parent. Yes, for an article, just to make sure I get quotes proper.". Matthew was called in for questioning. Have you spoken to her doctors about what they believe is the cause of her head injuries? Jessicas lawyer, Bree Lowry, asked. In December, 2014, Jessica had a brief affair and got pregnant again. In an analysis of more than two thousand family-court opinions from the past decade, Joan S.Meier, a professor at George Washington University Law School, found that, in sixty-four per cent of cases, courts did not accept the story of a mother who said she or her children had been abused by her husband, even when evidence corroborated the claim. In response to The GRIP's objection, the city of Griffin produced four records - a photograph of Matthew Boynton identified as Boynton.png, a photograph of Sanders identified as sanders.png, a screen shot of a private Facebook message identified as chat.png and a Word document composed of those three elements identified as will.docx. Georgia cop charged with making false statements - ajc Hankinson briefly paused during the hearing to see if any statutes said that attempted suicide was a form of child endangerment. Officers rush to the scene to find Jessica Boynton inside a locked closet, with an apparent gunshot wound to her head. She spoke to the GBI, from her hospital bed. Recent signers. In an interview with the police, she said that she found him intimidating. Jessica was found with a gunshot wound in the closet of the couple's bedroom. 13 talking about this. She was sure that if she didnt comply he would arrest her. Which is very off that this happened, because I never, ever had any thoughts like this before. Jessica Boynton was found shot in th. And I could have been the next target.. I think the city thought this would be business as usual, until a local reporter and a loser truck driver got involved, Will Sanders said. The police were notified of said "shooting" by Jessica's then husband Matthew Boynton. Matthew signed a sworn statement promising that he no longer had anything of Jessicas. The idea that domestic violence is bad for kids still has not sunk init sometimes barely makes a dent in a case, she said. But Griffin Police Chief Michael Yates said, Officer Boynton was not the shooter and trusts the investigations outcome. Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us. Philip Stinson, the professor at Bowling Green, maintains a database of officers who have been arrested around the country, and he said that, in response to the Lautenberg Amendment, a federal provision that was passed in 1996 and prohibits people convicted of domestic violence from owning firearms, cops accused of domestic violence are often charged with lesser offenses, as a kind of professional courtesy, so they can continue working. Yates had lost his previous job, in 2014, as chief of the police department in Jonesboro, Arkansas, after he called a local reporter smelly and said that dealing with her was like trying to pick up a dog turd by the clean end. She resigned, citing the level of stress and anxiety created by a public official who commands a small army., Within two hours of Sanderss Facebook comment, Yates informed Sanders that his private Facebook messages would be made accessible to any persons interested in the entire scope of your actions, activities, motives and history. He added, This material will be released in the interest of transparency and context. The department had obtained the messages a year earlier, as part of the investigation into Jessicas gym bag. I mean, I'm sure there's a plausible explanation to it without trying to come up with some sort of, you know, theory that, 'Oh, he has to be here in the kitchen answering these text messages.'". My kids are at home with her, so I'm trying to hurry up and get back there., I'm driving. Matthews wedding ring had a blue stripe, to signify he was in law enforcement. Like, how hours after the shooting, the phone was put into an evidence bag, sealed and logged into GBI evidence, it was still calling Matthew's girlfriend. In Jessicas first three weeks in the hospital, he visited her once, accompanied by Beam, who wore his uniform and carried his gun. Sheriff Beam can carry a weapon, he said. "That was when approximately 24 minutes into the conversation, his demeanor changed and everything flipped," she recalled. (Matthews lawyer said, in an e-mail, The ultimate aim of both the GBIs investigation and the grand jurys inquiry was to find the truth. Difference between non-contested & adultery divorce? she wrote. Shes just a piece of shit, Jacob clarified. summary of an interview with King, the neurosurgeon, noted that he called the circumstances of her injury suspicious, but the agent who conducted the interview failed to record the conversation; he hadnt charged his audio recorder. Philip Stinson, a professor of criminal justice at Bowling Green State University and one of the few scholars who has studied the issue, reached a similar finding: one in five officers arrested for domestic violence nationwide had also been the subject of a federal lawsuit for violating peoples civil rights. Nothing will happen to the kid.. However, the GBIs own photographs, search warrant and evidence log all corroborate that the officers phone was on the kitchen counter after Matthew had already left the apartment. I figured out what happened. The neighbor saw Matthew leaving the apartment for dinner with a coworker. He drove to a nearby Waffle House to have a late dinner with a fellow Griffin police officer. She walked with a limp and struggled with headaches, short-term memory lapses, ringing in her ears, and numbness on the left side of her body. It was actually from him. Her mouth covered with a breathing apparatus and several machines attached to her, in an effort to monitor her condition. So there was really no need for me to leave. I didnt know if I was dealing with a possible active active scenario where she still had the gun and she had shot Tyler, he replied. Chris DeMarco, GBIs assistant special agent in charge, arrives on the scene and meets with Griffin Police Chief Michael Yates for a briefing. GRIFFIN, Ga. - Matthew Boynton was arrested by his fellow Griffin Police officers and taken to the Spalding County Jail on felony charges. To obtain the search warrant, a lieutenant submitted a sworn statement explaining that there was probable cause that Sanders had been involved in two commercial burglaries; later, the lieutenant said that this was the result of a cut-and-paste error.). She said we needed to know what kind of kid he was. FOLLOW THE EVIDENCE FOR YOURSELF, CLICK HERE. Matthews case was presented to a grand jury in July, 2018. In May, 2017, they broke up. Within three hours, she received a copy of Matthews official oath, which the D.A.s office had been trying to find for six months. At the store, they got into a fight, and when they left Jessica said she didnt want to get into the car. Griffin Police officer Matthew Boynton was cleared in his wife's shooting, but his interrogation still cost him his job. Eleanor Attwood, a lawyer representing six women who filed civil suits against Gibson, warned me to do all my reporting when the sun was out. Eleven Griffin police officers arrived at the apartment complex. Earlier that night Jessica's husband Matthew headed to Waffle House for a late-night bite with a fellow officer, leaving his service weapon . Im only concerned with the G.B.I. Get off of me! she screamed. Jessica Lester's friends persuaded her to date Matthew Boynton, a boy in the eleventh grade, by saying, "If you don't like him, you can always break up . His flashlights beam reveals a smiling family of four. But he granted full custody to Matthew. You want to start recording me, and started quoting me, you'd better let me know ahead of time, or we're gonna have a problem. 2023 Cond Nast. Although its possible that Jessicas head hit the wall after she shot herself, there was no blood on the wall or on the clothes in the closet. I didnt try to wash my handsnothing. He sounded like an eager student. There are too many useless words thrown in, she said. I didnt know if it was an active scenario, he later told investigators. Sanders said that he no longer goes anywhere unarmed. Dusty and her husband drove to Jessicas apartment. The agents who wrote the report seemed indifferent to the dynamics of Jessica and Matthews marriage, as if the subject were a private matter that didnt merit discussion in an official investigation. One of the neighbors said that, not long before he heard the gunshots, he also heard some banging, like she was banging on the door or something..
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