| Saturday, August 28,
2004
Davis sentenced to life in
prison
By KELLYN
BROWN Chronicle Staff Writer
Victims of last summer's Ennis
shootings stared at George Harold Davis' back as
he shuffled out of a tense Madison County
courthouse Friday to begin serving a life sentence
in prison for murder.
Davis, 46, was
sentenced to seven life sentences without parole
for murdering 27-year-old Jamie Roberts and trying
to kill six other young people outside an Ennis
bar last summer. The sentences will run
concurrently.
During a three-hour hearing
Friday, Roberts' parents took the stand and warned
Davis that he would be judged by God.
"You,
George Davis, do not deserve anything other than
rotting in hell," Roberts' mother, Sharon Clark
said. "Or, better yet, why don't you do us all a
favor and kill yourself as you killed my son and
tried to kill six other very innocent young
adults?"
Roberts' stepfather, Doug Clark,
talked about the night of the murder, when he
loaded Jamie's lifeless body into the bed of
pickup truck to take him to the
hospital.
"Do you know what it is like to
step out a door and see your son on the street,
and hear a gunshot and watch him fall to the
ground?" Doug Clark asked.
During the testimony, Davis did not
make eye contact with Roberts' parents. He sat,
handcuffed, in an orange jump suit. At one point,
he began crying and dabbed at his
eyes.
Davis pleaded guilty in March to
murder and six counts of attempted murder. In
exchange, prosecutors agreed not to seek the death
penalty.
But even though it has been more
than a year since Roberts' death, his family's
wounds are still fresh. Roberts' widow, Kandi
Popp, submitted her testimony to the court through
a victim's advocate, who read it aloud in
court.
"People say that time eases pain,"
Popp said. "I don't think that is true. It just
makes us miss Jamie even more."
Her husband
died on June 14, 2003. That night, Davis, after
many hours of drinking, began gunning down young
people outside the Silver Dollar Saloon on Main
Street in Ennis.
He killed Roberts, of
Ennis, wounded six others and led police on a
high-speed chase. He was shot, and eventually
arrested, in Missoula County.
In court
Friday, Davis said he was pushed out of the bar by
a "fat man" and blacked out that night. He said he
was sorry. And he said he had stopped taking
antidepressant medication, which contributed to
his rampage.
"I was shocked," Davis said.
"I was scared. For some reason everything went
black.
"I could sit here and repent over
and over. Again, I'm sorry."
Davis said he
abruptly stopped taking the antidepressant drug
Paxil in the days leading up to the
murder.
His defense attorney, Ed Sheehy
Jr., argued that heavy drinking and withdrawals
from the drug instigated the
shootings.
Sheehy asked the court to
sentence Davis to 40 years in prison, with 40
years probation on top of that.
"That's
because Mr. Davis is a middle-aged man," Sheehy
said. "He is 46 years old. He'll be 86 before he
even walks outside of prison walls."
But
prosecutors argued that Davis was unrepentant for
the shootings, and was simply looking for excuses
for his "evil" behavior.
"He is the very
face of evil," Madison County Attorney Bob Zenker
said. "He's the kind of evil that all of us as
parents try to protect our children
from."
Zenker said Davis is a racist, hates
cops and can't blame this killing on
medication.
Everywhere he goes, Zenker
said, the most-often-asked question is
"Why?"
That's what Mike Carroll, one of the
six shooting victims, asked Davis
Friday.
"I talked you that night," Carroll
said. "You shot me. You shot my
wife."
Carroll asked Davis why he did
it.
But Davis had no clear answer, other
than that he didn't remember the
shootings.
When Tucker handed down the life
sentence in the old, Virginia City courthouse,
there was a collective sigh in the gallery where
50 people sat, many of them wearing T-shirts with
the initials"JR" on them. Under the initials, they
read "Just Remember, June 14, 2003."
Family
and friends of the victims cried when Davis left
the courtroom. Moments later, several of them
clapped.
Along with life in prison, Davis
must pay $76,000 in restitution to the six
shooting victims.
As people left the
courthouse just before noon on Friday, they passed
a car bearing a bumper sticker created in response
to Davis' shooting spree. It read "Love Wins.
Ennis, Montana"
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