GLYNN COUNTY, Ga. — Ahmaud Arbery's father painted a vivid picture of the enduring pain he feels from his son's murder Friday in a Glynn County court as the three convicted killers await their sentencing.
Marcus Arbery, Sr. said that, "When I close my eyes, I see his execution in my mind over and over. I will see that for the rest of my life."
Asking that Judge Timothy Walmsley sentence the convicted murderers to the maximum, Arbery said "they should sit behind them bars the rest of their lives, because they didn't give (Ahmaud) a chance."
Judge Walmsley will later rule whether Greg and Travis McMichael and William "Roddie" Bryan will spend the rest of their lives in prison with or without the possibility of parole. The life sentences are already set forth by mandatory sentencing laws in Georgia.
The father drew a contrast between the McMichaels - the father and son who initiated the chase of Ahmaud Arbery that ended with Travis McMichael shooting and killing Arbery - and his own loss.
He noted that Greg and Travis McMichael, as their trial went on, sat next to each other in court.
"The man who killed my son is sitting in this courtroom every single day next to his father. I'll never get that chance to sit next to my son ever again," Marcus Arbery said. "Not at a dinner table, not at a holiday, and not at a wedding... I pray that no one in this courtroom ever has to do we we did - bury their child."
The father also brought up Arbery's love of running, which he was doing through the Satilla Shores neighborhood in Glynn County before he was murdered.
"Not only did they lynch my son in broad daylight, they killed him while he was doing what he loved more than anything - running," Marcus Arbery said. "That's when he felt most alive, most free and they took all that from him."
Arbery said he was in court to "fight" for his son, "fight for his memory, his legacy, and to tell you who he was because that's the one thing you didn't hear in this courtroom - and more than anything else you should know who my boy was."