Life plus 45 years: Sentence longer than requested for man whose gun ended primatologist’s work.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Primatologist Shelly Williams got what she wanted in a Cobb County courtroom Friday. The man who shot and paralyzed her in 2005 was sentenced to life plus 45 years in prison.
“Justice was served,” she said.
Elliott Mitchell was convicted of nine felonies. He was also convicted of robbing and kidnapping Terrance Reid, a North Carolina man who was there to buy drugs from Mitchell and former co-defendant Kendall Bolden.
Bolden, 23, pleaded guilty on Monday and will be sentenced later.
When Reid tried to get out of the truck the men pulled him into, Mitchell hit him on the head with the gun. A bullet discharged, striking Williams. She was running an errand in a shopping center at Cobb Parkway and Spring Road.
Mitchell, 27, stood silently as Cobb Superior Court Judge Stephen Schuster gave him more prison time than the life plus 25 years the prosecutor requested.
Williams has not walked since Nov. 7, 2005.
At the time of the shooting, she had received worldwide attention for a discovery in the Republic of the Congo. She was planning a return trip to collect more evidence to document a new species of ape, seemingly a cross between a chimpanzee and a gorilla.
Her peers said at the time that her find could be one of the most significant wildlife discoveries in decades.
“It was groundbreaking,” Williams, 53, said in court.
Now the discovery will not be confirmed, Williams said, because only she knows where the apes are. She was taken to them by indigenous people she befriended with her knowledge of their language and culture.
“Not only did the bullet enter me and destroy my life, it entered my husband’s life and destroyed his life,” Williams said.
The tribe members she befriended also were hurt because she did not return and bring them medicines, Williams said.
She said people in the area died from colds and some had skin sores that would not heal without medicine.
Some were saved by the treatment she offered, Williams said.
“It’s a ripple effect,” she said. “I get shot and it’s not just me in Smyrna. It’s something that can have effects far-reaching.”
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