Anita McNeil said late Sunday that she is hoping her husband’s imprisonment is nearly over, and she said she wants to avoid bitterness for what she believes is a six-year injustice.
Still, she remains cautious, she told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution after spending much of the day in church.
“At least for today I can smile,” she said. “You don’t get too excited about this – you just take one day at a time.”
In 2006, John McNeil was charged with murder, convicted and sentenced to life in prison – charges that came nine months after police had said he acted in self-defense the December night when he shot and killed Brian Epp.
Last week, Baldwin County Judge Hulane E. George ruled that there were substantial errors and omissions in McNeil’s trial. The decision to grant McNeil’s habeas corpus appeal on the basis of a wrongful conviction means that he will be freed within 30 days – unless that ruling in turn is appealed by the attorney general of Georgia, said McNeil’s attorney, Mark A. Yurachek.
“It is a very good day,” said Yurachek.
The judge’s order, Yurachek said, noted that the trial jury had not known that Epp had been convicted of felony possession of methamphetamine. The jury also had not been told that police had found marijuana in Epp’s car on the day of the shooting.
On Saturday, the NAACP urged Attorney General Sam Olens not to appeal the judge’s decision. Derek Turner, an NAACP spokesman, said the group had sent Olens a petition with 14,567 signatures urging him to let the judge’s ruling stand and to permit McNeil to go free.
A spokeswoman for Olens declined comment because the case is pending.
The incident occurred at McNeil’s home near Kennesaw. McNeil’s son called him after he was confronted in the backyard by Epp, a contractor who had previously done work on the home but had no permission to be on the property.
McNeil alerted police and rushed home, authorities said.
Court records show that McNeil demanded several times that Epp leave the property, fired a warning shot, but continued to back away from him until Epp lunged toward him. McNeil then fired and killed him.
Investigating police found McNeil acted in self-defense.
“My husband didn’t want to hurt anybody and he wouldn’t have hurt anybody but for his concern for his child,” Anita McNeil said Sunday. “He wouldn’t have hurt anybody if he didn’t feel his life was threatened. You think about how far John backed up and the guy kept coming.”
She said when she came home that night, four uniformed officers were waiting.
“One said to me, my husband did what he had to do and it easily could have been the other way around,” she said.
About 270 days later, John McNeil was indicted for murder.
Some have compared the case to the high-profile “stand your ground” case involving George Zimmerman, the Sanford, Fla., neighborhood watch volunteer who shot and killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in February.
But the circumstances of that case were somewhat different. For example, Zimmerman had followed Martin. Moreover, he was not on his own property when the shooting occurred. And, while Zimmerman said they struggled for his gun, Martin did not come to the confrontation armed.
Epp had a knife, which he waved in the face of McNeil’s son, according to court documents.
Among other contrasts, the one shot in Sanford, Martin, was black. In Kennesaw, the man with the gun, McNeil, was African-American and the man he shot was white.
Anita Martin said that while she sees her husband’s conviction was unfair, she doesn’t see the issue as racial.
“Regardless of race, color, any one of us could be John McNeil,” she said.
Efforts to reach Brian Epp’s widow for comment Sunday were unsuccessful.
Anita Martin, who said she had only briefly met Epp and his wife, said she tries to be neither bitter at her husband’s predicament nor purely joyful at the idea of his freedom.
“I just refuse to be angry or bitter. I just cannot live my life that way,” she said. “And we value life and we know a life was lost that day and that saddens us.”
The McNeils were high school sweethearts. They have been married for 20 years. Anita McNeil now is back in her native state of North Carolina where she has been undergoing treatments for cancer, an illness first diagnosed nine years ago.
Now, she said she awaits the attorney general’s decision with a tempered optimism. “We continue to hope and to pray. And we will continue to fight until John is free.”
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