Victim’s cousin punches condemned defendant in DeKalb court

A murder victim’s cousin rushed by an astonished courtroom audience and punched condemned killer Clayton Jerrod Ellington on Wednesday.

Sheriff’s deputies quickly wrestled the attacker into a railing and hustled him out of the courtroom in the DeKalb County courthouse in downtown Decatur. No one was seriously injured, but two deputies were taken to a hospital for evaluation.

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Joey Ivansco / jivansco@ajc.com

Clayton Jerrod Ellington was sentenced Tuesday to three death sentences.

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The attack came just before a scheduled hearing. Superior Court Judge Anne Workman had not entered the courtroom, but District Attorney Gwen Keyes Fleming was seated in the first row of spectators when the young man bolted past her at 9:30 a.m.

After a 45-minute delay, Workman held the brief hearing under heavy security to pronounce the three death sentences against Ellington returned by a jury Tuesday. The same jury earlier found him guilty of murdering his wife, 31-year-old Berna Ellington, and their twin 2-year-old sons at their home near Lithonia.

Ellington declined the chance to make a statement to the court Wednesday. He did not testify in his trial, but he had told police his wife killed the children before he killed her in a fit of rage. Prosecutors said he killed all three because he was obsessed with a new girlfriend.

Workman told Ellington she agreed with the guilty verdicts and said he “slaughtered” his family.

“May God have mercy on your soul, the mercy you denied Berna, Cameron and Christian Ellington on the night of May 17, 2006,” Workman said, frequently looking up from her prepared text to look directly at the defendant.

She then read the order setting his execution date for a one-week window beginning Dec 2. Georgia law requires an appeal, and state and federal appeals of death sentences usually take years.

At a news conference in the district attorney’s office following the hearing, Berna Ellington’s father, Bernard L. Judge, said, “I’d like to apologize to Judge Workman for the activity that happened this morning.”

Jeana Judge, Berna’s twin sister, said the attacker was a cousin. He was not immediately identified. Charges against him were still pending on Wednesday night.

The young man wailed loudly as he sprinted to Ellington, who was seated unshackled at the defense table waiting for the hearing. He landed three punches on Ellington’s neck and back before sheriff’s deputies reached him.

As the deputies wrestled him away, Ellington rose and whirled to face his attacker, but the two men were quickly separated.

One deputy hit her leg on an object during the scuffle, and another was having a hip checked at a hospital, but both injuries were minor, said Mikki Jones, a spokeswoman for the sheriff’s office.

At the news conference, Judge, a minister in Charleston, S.C., said his daughter, a government water quality scientist, was a “rising star in this community.” He thanked the jury for rejecting Ellington’s allegations against her.

“We feel so relieved that my daughter can go on now and rest in peace, and my family now has closure,” he said.