Distraught mother Delores Temple can’t bring her son back to life, but she found the strength to face his convicted killer and speak her mind.
A Lowndes County jury convicted Chaddy Brooks, 29, of second-degree murder Thursday in the November 2013 stabbing death of Danielle Gore, 37. Judge Jim Kitchens sentenced Brooks to 40 years in prison after Gore’s family asked the court not to pursue a sentencing hearing — which could have resulted in a life sentence.
Before Kitchens delivered the sentence, Temple spoke directly to Brooks from the witness stand.
“You were supposed to be his friend, and you reneged on him,” Temple said. “In due time, all will be forgiven. May God have mercy on you.”
Brooks was convicted of stabbing Gore, her boyfriend, to death while the two were fighting the morning of Nov. 22 at their Cypress Park apartment on Lehmberg Road. Brooks testified that a text message she found from another female on Gore’s phone sparked the argument.
Brooks admitted that, during the confrontation, she hit Gore multiple times and later grabbed a kitchen knife. She said the two then struggled for the knife and she accidentally stabbed him. She called 911 after the stabbing to report the incident.
The couple had five children between them and two of them were reportedly at the apartment during the incident.
In a tearful response to Temple’s statement, Brooks stood before the victim’s family members gathered in the courtroom and defended the honesty of her testimony.
“I may not be free physically, but I’m free in spirit because I told the truth,” she said. “Sometimes the truth hurts. Now I have to live with the consequences.”
The defendant’s honesty, however, was a matter of debate throughout Brooks’ three-day trial.
District Attorney Forrest Allgood, who lobbied the jury heavily for a first-degree murder verdict during closing statements Thursday, pointed to Brooks’ statements to police where she admitted she was “frustrated,” “angry” and “wanted to fight.”
He also attacked her testimony as “not worthy” of the jury’s belief. He said she lied so badly when she testified on Wednesday that it was “embarrassing.”
“From start to finish, all the way through, she’s the aggressor,” he said. “She’s saying what she has to say to escape accountability for what she’s done. She got the deadly weapon, not him. She was the aggressor, not him. And he’s the one who’s dead.
Defense attorney Robert Laher argued that Brooks had been “open and honest” in both her testimony and her statements to police, particularly in her willingness to admit her own wrongdoing in instigating the confrontation.
He said his client “answered every question” investigators asked, even the ones that cast her in an unflattering light.
“In her worst moment, in a time when human nature says to keep your mouth shut, this woman said, ‘No. I’m going to tell it all.'”
After Thursday’s verdict, Laher told The Dispatch he wasn’t entirely dissatisfied with the verdict, and perhaps his client’s candor aided in the jury convicting her of a lesser offense than Allgood sought.
“In all honesty, this was the kind of case where I felt if we could avoid a first-degree murder verdict, that would be some measure of victory,” he said. “The difficulty was trying to overcome so much evidence that showed Ms. Brooks instigated a lot of what happened.”
After the trial concluded, Allgood called the ordeal a “tragedy all the way around.”
He said he still believes the evidence showed the malice necessary for a first-degree murder conviction, but he thought the jury was justified in rendering a second-degree verdict. Gore’s family, he said, also seemed satisfied with the verdict.
“I think it could’ve gone either way,” he said, referring to the first- and second-degree verdict options.
Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.
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