Emanuel Boykins is sorry he murdered Bobby Tillman.
He also said he's sorry for the heartache he has caused Tillman's mother, sister, friends and relatives.
"I accept full responsibility," Boykins said after pleading guilty to starting the Nov. 6, 2010 attack with the first punch that ended with the 18-year-old's murder outside a house party to celebrate the good grades of two former classmates.
The plea entered in Douglas County Superior Court Tuesday allowed Boykins to avoid a death penalty trial that was set for early June, getting life with the possibility of parole instead.
And he asked for forgiveness from Tillman's grieving mother, Monique Rivarde.
That won't come "at this moment. I can't say what I might do tomorrow," Rivarde said after she saw one of her son's four accused killers head off to prison where he will be for at least the next 30 years, the soonest he can be considered for parole.
She said, however, that when she looked at Boykins' face as he spoke, "I saw shame. I saw guilt. I saw remorse."
Boykins was 18 when he threw the first punch that set off a frenzy of kicks and stomps, leaving Tillman dead from a tear in his heart, laying in the street just yards from a celebration that got out of control after dozens of uninvited people showed up. Boykins and his friends were among those not invited to the party but came after word spread via social networks.
The callousness of the killing prompted shock, outrage and expressions of sympathy from across the country.
Tillman didn't know his accused attackers. They had attended different high schools. They ran with different crowds. They met in November 2010 only because of timing.
"It was senseless, without justification ... Your actions have imposed a sentence on this family they will never be free of, " Douglas County Judge William H. McClain said. Still, the judge noted Boykins seemed sincerely sorry.
And there is a different kind of sentence on parents in Douglas County, McClain said.
"Every parent ... of a child going to a party is going to wonder if this could happen," the judge said to the short, skinny man standing before him in a light blue buttoned-down cotton shirt, khaki pants and waist chains.
District Attorney David McDade offered the same deal Boykins took to all four friends last spring; plead guilty to murder and he wouldn't seek the death penalty.
Quantez Devonta Mallory and Horace Damon accepted the offer in June but they have not yet entered a plea in court.
Boykins and Tracen Franklin did not so McDade moved ahead with the death penalty cases, that were set for June.
McDade said Boykins' attorneys approached him several months ago about a plea.
On Tuesday some new details of that night came out but most of the events of Nov. 6, 2010, and the beating death of Tillman, a Perimeter College student, had been public almost immediately as a busload of teenagers were witnesses
Boykins at first denied hitting Tillman and pointed the finger at the others. Then on Tuesday, Boykins admitted he started it all.
Franklin, still facing a capital trial, was 19 and a former Douglas High football standout, home from Alabama State University in Montgomery when Tillman was killed.
Coleman and Mallory had taken paths not as promising as Franklin's. Coleman, 19 at the time, was on probation for a marijuana arrest and had moved to Forest Park, where he attended an alternative school. A classmate said Mallory, 18 at the time, known to get in trouble — “nothing bad” -- was a good football player with a shot at college. The Douglasville police said Coleman and Mallory also had attended a court-ordered “youths against violence” class, but never completed the program.
Tillman made it a habit to ask his mother for permission as he did the night of the party. He and a buddy went to a program at church on bullying, and then planned to go to the party for two former classmates from Chapel Hill High School.
Tillman was invited. The four accused of killing him crashed it.
"Some [at the party] brought pre-existing animosities," McDade said in court.
The prosecutor said a few young women got into fights that "evolved" into more fights with a lot of people encouraging them and a "mob mentality" took over.
"Mr. Boykins was identified as part of the mob mentality," McDade said.
Boykins was overheard walking up the hill of the driveway saying that he was going to "pop" the next [slur] he saw.
"Across the street, Bobby Tillman was leaning on a car, talking to friends," McDade said. "He saw Mr. Tillman. He became Mr. Boykins' target ... Mr. Boykins sucker punched him, knocked him to the ground with one punch."
Tillma stood 5-foot-6, and weighted 125-pounds.
And the others "set upon Mr. Tillman and began beating and stomping him," McDade said.
As McDade described that night, Boykins stared at the floor. He answered "yes, sir" to questions from the prosecutor and the judge.
Tillman's mother and sister sat a few feet away, crying.
McDade said he told Tillman's family of the plea offer. "They prayed about it. They cried about it." And then they told him to take it, he said.
"They had no right to snatch his life away from him. They didn't even know him," said the grieving mother -- who had moved with her children from Los Angeles five months before Tillman's death.
Then she played a recording of a routine voicemail her son had left. He talked about running late for work, ending with the words, "I love you. Bye."
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