Inset: Ralph Mincey (Walton County Sheriff”s Office). Background: The residence where Mincey allegedly shot and killed his wife and daughter in Oxford, Ga. (Google Maps).
A Georgia man is behind bars for shooting and killing his wife and his adult daughter earlier this week, Peach State police say.
Ralph Mincey, 63, stands accused of two counts of murder and a weapons possession charge over the deaths of 57-year-old Jennifer Lynn Mincey and 37-year-old Amanda Mincey McBrayer.
The fatal familial violence unfolded in dramatic fashion on Wednesday night at a residence on Gauntt Road in Oxford – a small town located roughly 40 miles southeast of Atlanta.
Deputies arrived at the house to find the defendant’s daughter already dead, according to the Walton County Sheriff’s Office. The man’s wife was rushed to Grady Memorial Hospital where she later succumbed to her injuries. Mincey was arrested at the scene.
“We are saddened by this senseless loss of life,” Walton County Sheriff Keith Brooks said in a terse press release.
On Friday, harrowing 911 calls were released which shed some light on what happened that fateful night.
In one call, Amanda McBrayer’s husband, Adam McGrath, told a dispatcher he saw the shooting unfold before he fled, according to audio obtained by Atlanta-based NBC affiliate WXIA.
“He just shot my wife in the head,” the grieving husband said, referring to the defendant. “I literally ran away because I had two kids I’ve got to protect, and I’m scared to go back up there.”
McGrath went on to tell the dispatcher his wife and her father were arguing about something immediately before the shooting.
“My wife was drunk, she was upset, she wanted me to bring her home,” the victim’s husband continued on the 911 call. “So I brought her to her parent’s house and then she got into it with her dad and her dad said, ‘I’ve got a gun, I’ve got a gun. I’m gonna pull the f—ing trigger,’ then shot her in the head. Then he grabbed his wife by the throat, threw her down and threatened to kill her too.”
As deputies responded to the address, another 911 call came in – this one from the defendant himself.
“My wife had told my daughter that I didn’t take care of my mother,” Mincey told a dispatcher. “I do every day, and I – I just shot my daughter and my wife of 38 years.”
The dispatcher inquired: “Do you know if they’re still breathing?”
“No, it don’t look like it,” the defendant replied. “It was a nine millimeter right straight to the head.”
Mincey went on to try to explain himself.
“I just – I couldn’t handle no more the f—ing lying and the way they were screaming at me,” the defendant said on the call. “I don’t know, I just, I lost it. I’m so sorry. Thirty-eight years, I love her.”
