By Joe Johnson
An Athens man was recently sentenced to 20 years in prison after being found guilty of aggravated assault for brutally beating a woman who later died.
After a weeklong trial last month in Clarke County Superior Court, a jury found 58-year-old Douglas Keith Carter not guilty of malice and felony in murder in the death of 56-year-old Lisa Lawson Kilbury.
The jury instead voted to convict Carter of aggravated assault for, according to the indictment, "repeatedly beating Kilbury with an object that resulted in blunt trauma to her head and neck, rib fractures, contusions covering a significant portion of her body, a lacerated spleen and kidney contusion.”
According to an Athens-Clarke County police report, Kilbury’s lifeless body was found the afternoon of Aug. 30, 2018 after Carter called 911 to report the woman was not breathing. The coroner pronounced her dead at the scene.
Carter reportedly had called 911 earlier that same day to report that Kilbury was complaining of extreme pain, but the woman refused treatment.
A state medical examiner classified the woman's death as a homicide
Carter reportedly had been homeless prior to moving in with Kilbury one year prior to her death, in a small, two-room structure located in a pasture off Boley Drive.
He was sentenced on May 21 by Western Judicial Circuit Chief Judge Eric Norris.
A second trial for Carter is pending, in which he faces charges he sexually assaulted another woman at the same location where Kilbury died.
The grand jury that charged Carter with murdering Kilbury also charged him with committing rape, aggravated sodomy and aggravated assault on the other woman, according to the indictment.
Court documents alleged that Carter would become violent when drinking and if a woman denied him sex.
Carter’s attorney, David Williams, was granted a motion to sever the murder and rape cases.
The second trial has yet to be scheduled.