After being turned in by their mother at the Hunter Hill First Baptist Church in Atlanta, two teenage brothers pleaded guilty Thursday to the November 2016 murder of a 50-year-old man outside a gas station.
Charlie McDaniel, 17, and brother Isaac, 16, both entered guilty pleas for the murder of Anthony Brooks. They also pleaded guilty to participation in criminal street gang activity, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and possession of a firearm.
They were each sentenced to 45 years to serve 18 years in prison, Fulton County District Attorney’s Office spokesman Dontaye Carter said.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Shawn Ellen LaGrua, who presided over the hearing, said “the court system failed this community.”
“There was a combination of 17 prior instances by these two children. Now two families are destroyed.”
The brothers shot Brooks three times outside a Shell gas station on Campbellton Road in Southwest Atlanta last November after Brooks allegedly confronted them about stolen cars in the area.
After Charlie McDaniel pushed Brooks, his brother pulled out a gun and shot him. As Brooks retreated, Charlie McDaniel shot him as well, authorities said.
The brothers fled in a stolen car and Brooks later died at Grady Memorial Hospital.
The shooting was recorded on the gas station’s video surveillance system.
Both McDaniel brothers had extensive records prior to their arrest for Brooks' murder. The brothers had been arrested and released multiple times, and had more than 100 interactions with police, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution previously reported.
Brooks’ mother, Ellen McFarland, spoke out at the plea hearing. She said that all Brooks ever wanted was to “keep violence from his family, the neighborhood that he grew up in, loved and strived to protect.”
“On a daily basis, I must live my life never having closure. There is nothing worse than an incomplete chapter in one’s life, which is what I have left as a result of losing Anthony to unnecessary gun violence.”
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