The owner of the under-construction house in Georgia that Ahmaud Arbery checked out before he was shot dead has been getting death threats — and may never move into his dream home, his lawyer has said.
Arbery, 25, had been shown on surveillance footage looking around the construction site in February — moments before he was shot dead in a caught-on-camera confrontation as he jogged away.
Now homeowner Larry English, 50, has been getting death threats because of the “mistaken impression” he shared fears of break-ins with the father and son charged with Arbery’s murder, his attorney told NBC News.
It has so tainted the dream home he was building on the waterfront that he may never move in, lawyer Elizabeth Graddy told the broadcaster.
“Now, it’s honestly not safe,” Graddy said. “It’s supposed to be a place for comfort and peace. And now, it will be forever associated with this tragedy.”
English had once called a non-emergency police number about previous trespassing at the site, but he never used the word “burglary” — and never called the accused killers, Graddy insisted.
“Even if there had been a robbery, however, the English family would not have wanted a vigilante response,” Graddy said. “They would have entrusted the matter to law enforcement authorities.”
English has made it clear he will not help the accused — Gregory McMichael, 64, and his son, Travis McMichael, 34 — if they plan to use supposed break-ins as their defense, she said.
“My clients were not part of what the McMichaels told themselves to do,” Graddy said, insisting that her client had only once briefly met one of them, Travis, but never called them.
“If the McMichaels are going to justify what they did, they are going to have to look elsewhere for help,” she said.
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