Georgia Supreme Court upholds Sidney McKinney murder conviction

Published 2:55 pm Monday, October 21, 2019

THOMASVILLE — The Georgia Supreme Court upheld Monday the conviction of a Thomas County man convicted in the December 2014 killing of his former girlfriend.

Justices voted unanimously to affirm Sidney McKinney’s 2016 conviction for the malice murder of Deborah Thigpen. On appeal, he argued the trial court erred by admitting his conviction for a battery against Thigpen committed three months before the murder, as well as evidence of his attack on another former girlfriend 15 years earlier.

He also argued that his trial counsel provided ineffective assistance by failing to object to the prosecutor’s statements in the trial closing argument.

The trial court sentenced McKinney to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The court merged felony murder and aggravated assault counts into the malice murder conviction.

After McKinney’s and Thigpen’s relationship ended in early 2014, Thigpen resumed a romantic relationship with another man, telling the man McKinney had been “abusive and beat her all the time.”

On March 1, 2014, Thigpen was staying with the man, who had gone to work, when McKinney broke into the house through a window and raped her.

After being released from jail, McKinney grabbed Thigpen on the street and tried to choke and sexually assault her, the document states.

When Thigpen’s body was discovered, a city detective found nearby a pair of panties and two pairs of tights rolled on top of each other with leaves and other debris on them. The opinion states that the items were identified as being being worn by the victim the time she was seen by friends.

“The injuries on Thigpen’s body indicated that she had been hit multiple times on the head and in the face and that a hand and a ligature of some kind, such as tights pulled taut, had been wrapped and squeezed around her neck,” the state Supreme Court’s opinion, with Justice David Nahmias presiding, stated. “She also had scrapes along her buttocks area, indicating that she had been dragged or was trying to scoot away while on the ground. The cause of Thigpen’s death was asphyxia and blunt force trauma. It would have taken at least five minutes for her to be killed in this way. A sexual assault kit revealed no injuries in her genital area, and swabs of the area did not show any male DNA. Under Thigpen’s fingernails, however, there was DNA from appellant.”

When questioned by police after the murder, McKinney had recently chewed off his fingernails, according to the opinion.

McKinney did not testify at his trial. 

“His main defense was that the law enforcement officers failed to fully investigate other potential suspects because they rushed to judgment against him based on his history with the victim,” justices wrote.

According to the unanimous Supreme Court opinion, the trial court did not abuse its discretion by admitting evidence from a previous incident involving Thigpen.

During closing argument, the prosecutor described McKinney’s behavior toward Thigpen as “spiking upwards to a rape.” The prosecutor then acknowledged the grand jury had “no-billed” the rape charge arising from the March 2014 incident, and the state had to accept what the grand jury decided.

Senior reporter Patti Dozier can be reached at (229) 226-2400, ext. 1820