DALTON, Ga. – “Mr. Burlison, look at me,” Conasauga Judicial Circuit Superior Court Judge Scott Minter said to the defendant during his sentencing hearing Tuesday afternoon.
“It would be easy to look at you now,” he said, “the way you are, confined to that wheelchair, on oxygen “
“And a catheter,” said Jay Thomas Burlison, 75.
“And a catheter,” Minter continued. “And to forget who you were, back in 1984…Looking at you now, some folks might forget the man who killed Ernest Griffin, who tried his very best to kill Mary Mealer.”
Thirty-four years ago, police say, Burlison stopped in front of Griffin’s car at the Golden Gallon convenience store in Rocky Face. Burlison’s wife, Mealer, had filed for divorce three weeks earlier. She had started dating Griffin. On this night in November 1984, Mealer later said, Burlison pulled out a handgun and shot Griffin in the head. Mealer said he then shot her four times in the chin and the side before he ran out of bullets.