Marcus Arbery, the father of Ahmaud Arbery, gave a victim impact statement ahead of the sentencing of the three men who were convicted of murdering his son.
“You know something that just does not sit right with me at this time? The man who killed my son has sat in this courtroom every single day next to his father. I’ll never get that chance to sit next to my son ever again — not at the dinner table, not at the holidays and not at a wedding,” he said Friday in the courtroom.
He spoke about the trauma of experiencing the death of his 25-year-old son.
“I pray that no one in this courtroom ever has to do what we had did — buried their child. There is no words for that, because no one knows that much pain,” Arbery said.
“When I close my eyes, I see his execution in my mind over and over. I’ll see that for the rest of my life,” he said.
Speaking of Travis McMichael, Gregory McMichael and William “Roddie” Bryan Jr., who were convicted, he said:
“Not only did they lynch my son in broad daylight, but they killed him while he was doing what he loved more than anything: running. That’s when he felt most alive, most free. And they took all of that from him.”
He added that the men should spend the rest of their lives behind bars while thinking about their actions, “because me and my family, we got to live with his death for the rest of our life. We will never see Ahmaud again. So I feel they should stay behind them bars for the rest of their lives, because they didn’t give him a chance.”
