FULTON COUNTY, Ga. — The parents of a murdered police officer say they finally got the justice they’ve been waiting for--for more than seven years. The man who shot and killed their son was just sentenced to life plus 375 years.
In an exclusive interview, the parents spoke to Channel 2′s Tom Jones about their pain and their long road to justice.
The parents of detective Green say these last more than seven years waiting on justice has been agonizing. They thought that they would leave this earth before justice arrived. Then they were in court when their son’s killer received a life sentence plus 375 years.
“I said that’s forever that’s all I thought to myself. That’s forever,” Bertha Avery Green thought when she heard the man who murdered her son was sentenced to life plus 375 years.
Officials say 50-year-old Amanuel Menghesha had faced the death penalty for the 2015 murder of Fulton County police officer Terence Green.
But the death penalty was taken off the table when Menghesha pleaded guilty to malice murder and aggravated assault Friday.
It ended more than seven years of the Green’s long journey to justice.
“It was just horrible for me to just wait and wait and wait and wait,” Bertha Green said.
She told Jones she and her husband are up in age...and it shouldn’t have taken this long to get justice.
“I said what are you all going to do, wait until we die? We’re on our way,” she said.
Detective Green had arrived at a shots fired call with other officers that night on Chastain Way.
Police say Menghesha ambushed the officers and shot Green in the head, killing him.
The Greens’ got the call about 2 a.m. that morning.
“I was tempted not to answer,” father Johnny Green said.
But he answered.
They rushed to the hospital and saw their wounded son.
“I just had to hug him. That’s all I could do because I didn’t know what else to do,” Bertha Green said.
The Greens were in deep pain. They say that pain was made worse as the years went by with no movement in the case.
The Fulton County District Attorney’s Office says death penalty cases take time.
Then the defense changed counsel, mental evaluations were requested by the defense, and of course, the spread of Covid-19.
Bertha Green says during sentencing, Menghesha seemed disaffected by it all.
“No remorse at all. He didn’t look back and say I’m sorry or anything,” she said. Still, she forgives him.
“I have to forgive to live,” she said.
Their son says his parents have been fidgety and sleepless the last seven years.
Now, that’s gone.
“They’re at ease. That’s what the problem was,” son William Carmichael said.
The Greens’ home is a shrine to their son.
“The Governor of the state of Georgia; there’s a proclamation from the governor, police patches from his comrades and a bench in his honor,” Johnny Green said.
They say this world lost someone who had so much to give.
“Terence was a good man. He was so good. He cared about people. He was a caring person,” Bertha Green said.