Morgan Daniel Barnhill, inset, murdered Etienne Murray by beating him to death with a shovel, police said. (Screenshot: WKRG. Mug shot: Mobile County Sheriff’s Office.)
A murder victim’s mother landed in handcuffs on Monday after an Alabama judge found her in contempt for saying, “I wish death upon every one of you,” according to Mobile Fox affiliate WALA.
Mobile County Circuit Judge Brandy Hambright called Linda Gayle’s statement a threat.
They were in court Monday to see Morgan Daniel Barnhill, 29, sentenced to life in prison — with the possibility of parole after 15 years under state law — for beating Etienne Murray, 25, to death with a shovel. He pleaded guilty to murder in February.
Cops in the city of Mobile said that in the March 2022 attack, Barnhill led Murray to his home in the community of Tillman’s Corner and attacked him with a shovel. He lied to cops at first by claiming that the victim was a stranger who tried to break into a shed. Investigators determined that the men actually knew each other. Gayle has said that the men were friends.
“Through the investigation, it was determined that the alleged victim (Barnhill) intentionally misled officers about an attempted burglary on the 4300 block of Windy Hill Circle East,” officers said in a statement to Law&Crime. “Detectives discovered several inconsistencies in Barnhill’s statement and determined he filed a false report claiming an unknown male was attempting to break into a shed on his property.”
At the time, authorities suggested in court that race may have played a role in the attack, but did not elaborate. Barnhill is white. Murray was Black.
On Monday, both the judge and Barnhill’s own attorney said they did not know how this happened in the first place.
Hambright called the murder “senseless.”
“I don’t quite know what brought us here,” she reportedly said.
Barnhill’s statement apparently did not clear things up, with him reportedly saying, “I apologize for the events that … caused the young man’s death.”
“That’s one of those mysteries that will never be solved unless it’s, you know, said from him,” defense attorney Bucky Thomas said after the hearing, according to WALA. “Certainly by way of the evidence, nothing was gleaned to say what started it or what precipitated it or in fact, what led to the actual incident. So at this point, we just won’t know.”
“He had so much potential,” Murray’s father, Benjamin Gayle, reportedly said. “A super-great man. … I just want justice.”
Linda Gayle remained in handcuffs for a half-hour.
“He was a fun-loving, caring, smart, flawed human being, like all the rest of us,” Linda Gayle said after court. “He deserved to live his life out, just like everybody else does. Because he didn’t get to do that, my life is broken. Our lives are shattered.”
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