Former attorney found guilty of murder
A disbarred attorney who led police on a months-long manhunt following the murder of his mother will serve life in prison after being found guilty on multiple charges.
DeKalb County District Attorney Sherry Boston recently announced a conviction by jury trial in the murder case against a defendant accused of stabbing and beating his mother to death at her DeKalb County home.
Jurors returned guilty verdicts in just one hour on May 24 against 49-year-old Richard Merritt on charges of malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, and possession of a knife during the commission of a felony in connection with the 2019 murder of his 77-year-old mother, Shirley Merritt.
The murder, which gained national news coverage, occurred Feb. 1, 2019.
According to officials, at the time of the incident, Richard Merritt was living at his mother’s home in Stone Mountain. He had lost his Bar license after stealing from clients and being indicted in Cobb County on 34 theft-related felony charges, stated officials. When Merritt entered a guilty plea in Cobb County on Jan. 18, 2019, he was sentenced to 30 years with a minimum of 15 years in custody. He was ordered to wear an ankle monitor until turning himself in at the Cobb County Jail at 5 p.m. on Feb. 1.
On Feb. 1, an out-of-state relative arranged a visit to support Shirley Merritt and drive Richard Merritt to jail, stated officials. On the morning of the murder, officials said the relative received an uncharacteristic text message discouraging him from coming to town; the message was supposedly sent by Shirley.
According to Cobb County officials, “The defendant’s ankle monitor showed he was at the home on Feb. 1 from 9:38 a.m. until 2:30 p.m., when he left the house. He then traveled on I-285 West to 75 North, passed the Cobb County Jail, and continued north. At 4:12 p.m. Merritt pulled off the highway and severed his ankle monitor. An employee of the monitoring company tracking the defendant’s GPS coordinates noticed the discrepancy. Only 14 minutes after the alert, the ankle monitor was found in a trash can at a truck stop.”
Family members attempted to contact Shirley multiple times but did not receive a response, stated officials. The DeKalb County Police Department performed a welfare check at her residence that evening and noted that all of the doors were secure and there was no answer at the door.
On the following morning, family members said they checked the house and found Richard Merritt’s car in the driveway; however, Shirley’s car was missing. After entering the home, a family member found the victim lying face down at the bottom of the basement stairs, dead.
When police arrived on the scene, they said they discovered that Shirley had been stabbed multiple times and had a blade protruding from her right cheek.
Near her body, police said they found a 35-pound dumbbell with blood and hair on it, as well as a knife handle that matched the protruding blade. In the kitchen, officers said they found the table set for two and food on the stove.
“A knife was missing from the knife block, which was the same knife used to stab Shirley,” said police. “There were no signs of forced entry, and no signs of struggle. Besides Shirley’s vehicle and cell phone, it did not appear that any valuables or electronics had been stolen.”
During the course of the investigation, officials said surveillance footage from the afternoon of the murder was recovered from a gas station that shows the defendant driving Shirley’s car. Location data also shows Shirley’s phone in the same area where the defendant removed his ankle monitor later that afternoon, according to investigators.
A nationwide manhunt for Richard Merritt conducted by the U.S. Marshals Service, the Cobb County Marshals Office and the DeKalb County Marshals Office lasted eight months. He was apprehended in Nashville, Tennessee, when Vanderbilt University Police stated they came across Shirley Merritt’s vehicle with a tag stolen from another vehicle. Officials said Richard Merritt had been living in the car with a girlfriend he’d met on a dating app. Richard Merritt was taken into custody without incident on Sept. 30, 2019.
During the trial, the defendant testified that two unknown men with guns had shown up at his mother’s home on the day he was to turn himself in, murdered his mother in front of him, threatened the rest of his family, then allowed him to leave. This version of the story had not been communicated to law enforcement until his testimony, stated officials.
Following his conviction, Richard Merritt was sentenced to life in prison without parole plus five years to run consecutively by DeKalb County Superior Court Judge Courtney Johnson, who presided over the trial.
The case, assigned to the DeKalb County District Attorney’s Homicide and Gangs Unita’s prosecuted by Senior Assistant District Attorney (ADA) Helen Pott, with assistance from Senior ADA Garrett Emmons, District Attorney Investigator Curtis Averhart, and Victim Advocate Jozlyn Varnedoe. The DeKalb County Police Department led the initial investigation.
