‘I apologize, sincerely:’ Fayette DA says murder suspect use letter as tactic to manipulate system

FAYETTE COUNTY, Ga. — A local district attorney says a letter a murder defendant wrote to a judge shows how he tried to manipulate the system.

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Fayette County District Attorney Marie Broder says young offenders who do that won’t get far.

“He’s right where he needs to be,” Broder told Channel 2′s Tom Jones about now-convicted murderer Jacobean Brown.

Broder says Brown, who was 18 at the time of the crime, deserved the Life without parole sentence a judge gave him for the murder of 15-year-old Madison Gesswein in Peachtree City last year.

She says she has seen a growing number of young people committing violent crimes. “As a mother and in my heart. I just want it to stop,” Broder said.

Prosecutors say Brown sneaked into Madison’s apartment and shot her in the head after the two got into a disagreement while text messaging.

“Her mother sat through the entire first trial and had to relive what happened to her baby girl.”

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In a letter to the judge before trial, Brown wrote that he acknowledges his mistakes.

He said he ran out of fear when officers arrived to arrest him. The video shows officers chasing him down.

Broder read Brown’s letter.

“This is very much the writings of a person who wants to manipulate the system,” she explained.

Brown asked the judge to let him out on bond. He wrote he wanted to get out to take part in spreading his father’s ashes in the ocean. His father had been murdered weeks before Madison was killed. Brown also said he had studied in the library and wanted to get his GED.

Broder found that odd.

“These are things that he supposedly wants to do but he didn’t do.”

Broder has a message for young people who commit violent crimes and try to manipulate the system. It won’t work, she says.

She says, if you commit a grown-up violent crime, you will do grown-up times.

“Keeping the community safe is my job,” Broder said.

Brown’s two co-defendants will face trial at a later date.

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