A Cobb County judge sentenced a 49-year-old man to spend the rest of his life in jail without parole Friday for killing his younger girlfriend.
An almost two-week trial led to the conviction late Thursday of George Michael Lewis on charges of malice murder, felony murder, domestic aggravated assault, possession of a firearm during a felony, aggravated stalking, violation of a family violence order and contributing to the deprivation of a minor.
Lewis had a rocky life with his girlfriend, 24-year-old Kendra Weathers, and her three sons at Lake Crossing Apartments on Six Flags Drive, before he shot her to death, according to the Cobb County district attorney's office.
"(Lewis) is convicted of murder because we haven’t yet found a name for the crime of depriving young children of their mother,” prosecutor Greg Epstein said. "Whatever remorse he may or may not have in the future doesn’t change the fact that he abandoned Kendra to bleed to death after he shot her and he abandoned those boys, and condemned them to a life without their mother."
Weathers had gotten a protective order against Lewis after a fight that put him in jail, but she had let him back into the home.
About 2 a.m. on May 5, 2015, the couple was arguing when Weathers ran into the breezeway outside the apartment and Lewis shot her twice with a pistol. Lewis was arrested near Savannah the next day.
Lewis testified earlier this week that Weathers was the aggressor and that the gun accidentally went off. He said he ran because he didn’t think police would believe him.
Cobb Judge Ann Harris sentenced Lewis to life in prison without parole, plus the required five years to serve consecutively on the firearms charge.
Before imposing the sentence, Harris did not mince words.
"What this defendant did was premeditated and calculated. He had that gun in his pocket and insisted she’s going to take him back or he’s going to punish her," the judge said. "All you had to do was walk away. But you were bound and determined to punish her. And you did. You punished her, and her children, and her family."
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