A Douglas County teenager accused of killing his great-grandmother with a Samurai sword had his initial appearance before a Superior Court judge on Wednesday.
Gevin Allen Prince, who turned 15 on Aug. 11, answered politely, telling Judge Robert James that he understood the charges against him – malice murder and four counts of aggravated assault.
District Attorney David McDade said that two of the assault charges stem from Prince’s alleged attacks on his great-grandmother, 77-year-old Mary Joan Gibbs, who died of her wounds, and on his grandmother, Laura Prince, 55. Laura Prince is recovering from the wounds she sustained in the Monday afternoon incident.
The other two assault charges were brought against the defendant after he allegedly chased with the sword two neighbors who tried to intervene in the incident. The neighbors, both juveniles, were not physically injured, McDade said.
McDade would not identify those neighbors, saying they “have been through enough. They saw what happened. The psychological impact is immeasurable.”
When police arrived at the home in the 3400 block of Spring Ridge Drive in Douglasville, they found Gibbs dead in the yard and Gevin Prince, whom authorities described as mentally disturbed, standing in the doorway with the three-foot Samurai sword and a pellet rifle. The teen used the rifle to shoot out the windows of a patrol car, police said.
After a 10- to 15-minute standoff, the suspect was talked out of the house and into the yard, where police used a Taser and K-9 dog to subdue him.
Officers previously had been to the Douglasville home at least two times because of the teen’s behavior. In June, deputies were called to the home when the teen injured his grandmother with a sword, Sheriff Phil Miller said. Miller said he confiscated that sword and still had it in his possession.
Police were called again to the home in July and arrested the teen on assault-related charges.
McDade would not discuss the particulars of those two incidents on Wednesday.
McDade said he did not know where the teen got the sword used in Monday’s attack, adding that there were “a number of weapons in the home.”
The judge ruled on Wednesday that Gevin Prince would remain in the Douglas County Jail without bond. His next court appearance has not been set.
“He’s charged with a very serious set of crimes,” McDade said after the hearing, adding that he had no choice under Georgia law but to charge the teen as an adult due to the seriousness of the alleged crimes.
“I’m not making a discretionary decision,” McDade said.
“He’s charged as an adult because the Georgia Legislature has made it clear someone 15 years of age who commits this crime is charged as an adult,” McDade said.
“He’s charged with a very brutal set of crimes and we’ll start the process of having him evaluated and if he has mental health issues, those will be taken into consideration," he said. "Just the crime itself suggests the need to look very carefully at his mental health condition."
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