John Dwight Phillips appears before Judge William T. Boyett in Murray County, Ga., Superior Court on Monday for jury selection. Phillips is charged with homicide in the beating death of his mother's boyfriend, Tommy Walraven, during a drunken argument on Christmas day last year.John Dwight Phillips, the Murray County, Ga., man who beat his mother's boyfriend to death last Christmas, is going to prison for five years.
Judge William T. Boyett sentenced Phillips in Murray County Superior Court on Wednesday morning. After his five years in prison, Phillips will be on probation for another five years. Conasauga Judicial Circuit District Attorney Bert Poston said in a news release that Phillips will have to pay a $1,000 fine, perform 240 hours of community service and undergo treatment for alcohol addiction.
The hearing didn't last long, about 30 minutes. Family members of Phillips and the victim both wrote Boyett letters about a week ago, pleading for the judge to see the case through their perspective. Phillips' side asked for mercy. The victim's side asked for the maximum punishment: 10 years in prison.
During Phillips' two-day trial in October, witnesses testified that he drank 15-20 beers last Christmas after arguing with his wife and leaving home. He later drove back to his house, shot at a dog, drove to his mother's house and got into an argument with her boyfriend of 13 years, Tommy Randall Walraven.
Walraven, 63, told Phillips, 29, to leave. Phillips told Walraven to leave. Then Walraven grabbed an unloaded shotgun and pressed it against Phillips' gut. Phillips punched Walraven. And punched him some more. And some more.
He sent Walraven from the dining room to the front door. His mother, Terry Lynn Welch, took the gun away, and Phillips kept fighting Walraven. At one point, Welch testified in October, Walraven sat on the couch while Phillips stood over him, still beating him.
After the fight, Phillips went back to one bedroom and Welch went back to another bedroom. Neither one called the police until four hours later, when Welch says she went back to the living room and found her boyfriend passed out on the floor in a puddle of his own blood.
Walraven's family told doctors to take him off life support the next day.
During the trial, Defense Attorney Rex Abernathy argued that Phillips feared for his life, that he only beat Walraven to death because Walraven pointed the gun at him. But Poston told the jury this wasn't so. He said that Welch took the gun away - and even then, even when Walraven could not defend himself, Phillips kept punching.
On Dec. 27, two days after the fight, Walraven died in a hospital room. His son, Nathan Gaddy, was next to him. He is not satisfied with Walraven's sentence.
"We feel like he should have spent 10 years in prison, you know?" Gaddy said. "My dad's dead. Nothing's going to bring him back. This guy, he's going to spend 10 years of his life having to suffer the consequences. But I don't think it's long enough. But we're glad he got something, you know? We were hoping for a little more."
Contact staff writer Tyler Jett at tjett@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6476.