Family: Death penalty ‘too easy’ for Commerce granddad

Michael Levigne’s relatives say they do not want the death penalty for the Commerce grandfather charged with killing the 6-year-old boy.

“Me and the father and the mother, none of us want the death sentence,” said Thomas Murphy, of Monroe, the boy’s uncle. “We want him to live knowing what he [has] done. We want him to live every day of his life knowing what he [has] done to this child. Death is too easy.”

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Michael Levigne was buried last week..

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Robert L. Clark, Jr., 55, is accused of shooting and killing Levigne on the afternoon of June 7 in an argument over a watermelon. Levigne died of a single gunshot wound to his chest. Clark is also accused of shooting Linda Dale Clark, 58, his wife and the boy’s grandmother, three times in the stomach. She is in critical condition in Grady Hospital but is expected to survive.

Robert “Bobby” Clark was shot four times by police after a 45-minute standoff following the shootings. He remains in critical condition at Atlanta Medical Center.

Murphy is the half-brother of Andrew Levigne, the deceased boy’s father, and was a pallbearer at Michael Levigne’s funeral this past Thursday in Carnesville. Murphy contacted the Atlanta Journal-Constitution over the weekend saying he wanted “people to know the true story” about what happened to Michael Levigne.

“It was over a piece of watermelon,” Murphy said in a telephone interview. “My mother had bought a watermelon on Saturday to take to the lake on Sunday. [Mr. Clark] cut a piece and ate it. He blamed it on the kids but she knew he was lying because of the way the watermelon was cut. She told him she knew he was lying and he just went nuts.”

Murphy said the child was shot first in his bedroom. Then his mother was shot three times in the stomach. None of her major organs were struck but an intestine was severed and was repaired during surgery, Murphy said.

Murphy said he never believed his mother was in danger with Clark, to whom she had been married for 20 years.

“You would have never thought this of him,” Murphy said. “In 20 years of marriage I never heard him raise his voice to my mother. I don’t know what got into him.”

Murphy said he was on the phone with his mother 30 minutes before the shooting and was aware of the dispute over the watermelon. “But I never dreamed anything like this would happen.”

The boy’s parents are estranged, Murphy said. He said Michael Levigne and his younger brother Alex were in custody of the grandparents because the parents “had trouble in the past with alcohol and drugs. They’ve been trying to straighten their lives out.”

“The Michael Levigne Fund” has been established at the Community Bank and Trust of Commerce to provide assistance for the family with burial expenses, medical expenses and care for the surviving brother.