Three-time felon William Woodard knew he was going back to prison — this time for life — if the two police officers found his gun, and that is why he shot and killed them, prosecutors said.
Woodard murdered DeKalb County police officers Ricky Bryant Jr. and Eric Barker on Jan. 16, 2008, in a parking lot at a low-income apartment complex where they were working extra jobs. Now that same jury that convicted him last week is hearing how Woodard, 31, got his life lessons from paranoid and mentally ill relatives and friends and a mother who traded sex for money. Violence was familiar, Morrison said. He was neglected and never knew his father, the defense attorney argued.
Woodard simply reacted as he had learned from the day he was born, with violence, said defense attorney Bill Morrison.
“It is not meant to justify what happened in this case,” Morrison said about Woodard’s life story. “It’s not meant as an excuse. What we’re doing now is looking at an entire life.”
The jurors will weigh that against the damage done to the lives of Bryant’s and Barker’s families and decide if Woodard should be sentenced to life in prison or to death. They began hearing evidence in the sentencing phase on Monday. They will likely begin deliberating the punishment this week.
“We are not suggesting to you that William Woodard is a great guy,” Morrison said. “[He is] a young man who has hurt people. He has sinned grievously against man and God. What we want to talk to you about is why.”
According to testimony, Bryant, 26, and Barker, 33, — both married and fathers of four — came up on the car Woodard had just gotten into after buying beer from a “shot house,” an apartment where beer was sold after hours.
He was pulled from the car when he could not produce an ID and within moments Woodard, who had multiple felony drug convictions, began shooting. Woodard ran off, leaving one officer dead and the other dying.
He also tried to claim he shot the two officers in self defense because they were beating him and one of them shot at him first.
But the jury also heard Tuesday about the other lives he destroyed.
Latoya Bryant spoke of her life as a single mother, going alone to sporting events and awards programs for her children. She said her youngest son often wakes in the night, crying for his father.
She said her 7-year-old had gone from being a “cute, loving little boy” to a child who is “confused, mad and angry at the world.”
“My children have been faced with living without their father,” she said.
Bryant said she now spends their wedding anniversary in a graveyard, crying beside the plot where her husband was laid.
“My husband was a great husband and police officer,” Bryant said. “I keep asking ‘why Ricky?’ and the answers never come. I still wonder what his last thoughts, last words were. Was he is pain? Our lives will never be normal again.”
Hilda Barker told the jury how her son’s death had upset the normal order of life of children burying their parents.
“I feel so much pain,” Barker said. “I never thought I would be here without him.”
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