The rel­a­tives of a six-year-old child who was mur­dered in Georgia expressed their wish­es that the death penal­ty not be sought against his killer and said they want­ed ​“peo­ple to know the true sto­ry” of what hap­pened to the child. ​“Me and the father and the moth­er, none of us want the death sen­tence,” said Thomas Murphy, the boy’s uncle. ​“We want him to live know­ing what he [has] done. We want him to live every day of his life know­ing what he [has] done to this child. Death is too easy.” The child, Michael Levigne, and his grand­moth­er were alleged­ly shot by his grand­fa­ther Robert ​“Bobby” Clark over a fam­i­ly dis­pute regard­ing a water­mel­on. The grand­moth­er is expect­ed to survive. 

(C. Towers, ​“Family: Death penal­ty ​‘too easy’ for Commerce grand­dad,” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, June 15, 2009). See Victims.

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