On Friday, defendant Orville Brooks (pictured below), who had been charged with setting girlfriend Tara Best (pictured left) on fire, was sentenced to more than 200 years in prison, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
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Convicted on 14 counts that included aggravated battery and criminal intent to commit murder, 30-year-old Brooks reportedly showed no emotion at his sentencing. Elated at the outcome Best said:
I feel like it was a great outcome, and I feel like I truly impacted young girls’ lives today.
Best suffered third-degree burns over 40 percent of her body, after Brooks doused her in gasoline and then threw a match at her.
Best adds:
I can just remember him pouring it on me and saying stuff, and I’m just pleading with him not to do it,” Best said. “He lit the match and threw it on me.
The harrowing incident occurred when Best returned home from work late. According to Best, upon arrival, Brooks began beating her and then forced her into a tub right before setting her on fire last January.
Seventy percent of her body was burned and Best fought for her life for three months while on life support.
In Best’s initial testimony, she said her mother had warned her about her relationship with Brooks:
I remember some neighbors coming up to me and asking me what happened. And I remember saying, ‘My momma told me to leave him.’
Women and young girls need to be especially picky about the mates they choose. So much domestic violence, murders and needless suffering could be avoided if women learned what was unacceptable and walked away at the first sign of inappropriate behavior.
Obviously, both men and boys need special training too, but with so many Fathers missing in homes, it is understandable why so many relationships in the Black community are failing.
Now a young women has to be scarred (both physically and mentally) for life and a young man will literally never see the light of day again as a free man.
What a tragedy.
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