Lanny Barnes made it to 46 years of age before he succumbed to the demons inside his skull. A lot of folks don’t make it that far. Some do themselves in before they get a chance to do harm to any others. In the case of 2 year old Avery Nicole King things didn’t turn out that way.
How does your day begin when you know you are going to commit an act so unspeakably horrible that you will probably be put to death for it?
Do you shave? Have breakfast? Kiss your Mom Goodbye?
By all accounts Lanny Barnes had a long history of depression apparently beginning with his fathers death some 20 years ago.
But how his Father’s death and the insane act he committed last week add up is something for much smarter people to divine.
Lanny, according to many witnesses drove his car into a McDonald’s restaurant in Covington Georgia and in the process ran over 5 people, 2 adults and three toddlers. Then he backed up and did it again. 2 year old Avery Nicole King was unlucky enough to be one of those hit by Barnes and she died a day or so later.
Covington appears to be a typical small Georgia town. It’s about 40 miles outside of Atlanta and has four McDonald’s inside the city limits. So your odds that Tuesday were 1 in four.
Covington is 45 % black and about 50% white. Lanny was black, his victims all white. Comments I read in local newspapers and in blogs are making this out to be a hate crime. Suggestions ranging from building a gallows and “stringing him up†to staking him to the ground and running him over till he dies are being made. Think the civil war solved anything? Not in Covington Georgia where feelings run deep.
Probably the most disturbing thing about this terribly sad incident is something that no authority will conform but that several eye wittiness’s swear is true. If this is indeed the case the chances of Lanny Barnes living too long in protective custody are slim and none and slim left town.
More than one person claims that Lanny was smiling broadly and laughing gleefully as he drove his car over and over his victims.
I am just pointing out another signpost as we slowly slip our way down the slope toward the warm place.
