Victim’s mother, wife testify in Thomason case
The convicted murderer’s resentencing hearing is scheduled to continue today in Floyd County Superior Court.
Death is off the table for murderer Gary Chad Thomason — a change in the decades-old case that now leaves only two possible prison sentences: life with a chance of parole or imprisonment with no chance of release.
Thomason, 42, appeared Monday in Floyd County Superior Court for his sentencing hearing. Convicted in 1996 of killing Jerry Self and facing death, Thomason had his sentence — but not his conviction — overturned in 2003 by the state Supreme Court.
The high court ruled the lawyers failed to present mitigating evidence, such as Thomason’s IQ of 77.
Prosecutors continued to seek the death penalty for Thomason, which led to an agreement. Thomason requested life without parole as a sentencing option — a request only he could make. In return, District Attorney Leigh Patterson took death off the table after speaking with Self’s family.
That means Judge Jack Niedrach, not a jury, will decide Thomason’s fate.
Self, 33, was shot Aug. 21, 1992, at his Bells Ferry Road home, just minutes after he called 911 to report a burglary in progress.
Wife recalls last words
Patterson on Monday called Self’s mother and widow to the witness stand.
The mother, Linda Manis, testified in a thick voice as Patterson displayed a picture of her son getting his first haircut.
“He was about a year old, I guess,” Manis said, the picture projected above her head on a screen. “He wasn’t kicking up too much fuss.”
More pictures followed. A 4-year-old Self sat in his mother’s lap in a living room. Self stood next to a snowman in a backyard. An adult Self stood inside one of his greenhouses holding his own young son.
Diane Self Rush, Self’s widow, also told the judge about a series of photographs. The last one showed Nathan, their son, holding a bag with his kindergarten supplies. It was taken two days before Self’s death.
Rush remembered the last words she spoke to her husband. He’d taken her to work that day before driving to his business.
“I love you,” Rush told her husband. “I’ll see you at 4:30.”
Self was dead a few hours later.
Rush was at her office when a neighbor called, telling her to go to the hospital and take someone with
‘I am still too numb to hate the person that took his life. After 22 years, I still feel the same.’
Linda Manis mother of Jerry Self
her. She went to the emergency room, and was moved to a room away from the ambulance arrival area.
She knew something was wrong.
Her brother arrived, and eventually a doctor followed who told her the news.
“I was in shock,” Rush said. “It was just an unreal situation.”
Both Rush and Manis wrote statements for Thomason’s 1996 trial. They read them Monday.
Manis recalled a moment in Thomason’s trial when his attorneys complained about his living quarters.
“Did you think about Jerry and his son and his wife when you prowled through his house and tore their things apart and you killed him?” Manis read. “They had no place to go that night that was theirs. Did you think about that?
“I am still too numb to hate the person that took his life,” Manis continued. “After 22 years, I still feel the same.”
Patterson also called Sgt. Derrik Biggs, with the state’s Department of Corrections. Biggs, who works at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison, told Niedrach that last summer Thomason stabbed another inmate in the shower.
The victim had wounds to his torso and leg. Thomason had a broken nose. A shank made from an 8-inch toothbrush was found in Thomason’s cell, Biggs said.
The defense
Christian Lamar, Thomason’s attorney, told Niedrach he had no intention of retrying the case. Thomason is guilty of murder, but Lamar said he wanted to show the judge how and why his client took another man’s life.
“We’re here to tell the story, not a fairy-tale story, but the story of Gary Chad Thomason’s life,” Lamar said.
Lamar added that he’d show what led Thomason to Self’s slaying, and what’s happened to him since then. He argued that after hearing that evidence, Niedrach would rule Thomason deserved a chance at parole.
Because the case is now ruled by current law, Thomason would be eligible for parole after serving 30 years.
Patterson gave no opening statement.
The hearing is scheduled to resume at 10:30 a.m. today, though inclement weather could postpone the proceeding.