Disbarred Cobb attorney Merritt gets life in prison for killing mother in 2019
Disbarred Smyrna lawyer Richard Merritt, who spent eight months evading capture as a wanted criminal, will spend the rest of his life in prison for beating and stabbing his mother, 77-year-old Shirley Merritt, to death in her DeKalb County home in 2019.
On Wednesday, May 24, Merritt was found guilty by a DeKalb County jury of murder, aggravated assault and possessing a weapon during the commission of a crime, according to court documents. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, plus five years.
In 2019, Merritt was due to spend 15 years behind bars for stealing hundreds of thousands in settlement money from his clients — clients who, on the stand, called him a “con man” and a “mendacious scoundrel.”
The attorney pleaded guilty to 34 criminal charges, begging then-Cobb Superior Court Judge Robert Flournoy for time to get his affairs in order.
Flournoy acquiesced. But on the agreed- upon date when he was to report to jail — Feb. 1, 2019 — Merritt was nowhere to be found.
Within the hour, the district attorney’s office determined Merritt had cut off his ankle monitor. He was now a fugitive.
The next day, Shirley Merritt was found dead in her Stone Mountain home. Police said she’d been beaten with a dumbbell and stabbed multiple times. Richard Merritt’s car was in the driveway; Shirley Merritt’s Lexus was gone.
Merritt proceeded to lead authorities on an eight-month nationwide manhunt before being captured by the U.S. Marshals Service in Nashville.
Merritt’s murder trial was held in the courtroom of DeKalb Superior Court Judge Courtney Johnson.