David Lester
A Chattanooga man charged with killing his father told a detective, "That man terrorized me for 48 years."
David Lester, 48, was first charged with aggravated domestic assault after the Dec. 15 shooting at a duplex on Dorris Street. That was upgraded to criminal homicide after Bobby Lester, 74, died nine days later from the injuries of a single gunshot to his chest.
The charges were bound to the Grand Jury by General Sessions Court Judge Gerald Webb on Tuesday. Lester is now on bonds totaling $300,000.
Talena Griffin, girlfriend of David Lester, said at the time of the incident that he got upset when his father was fussing at his mother, who is wheelchair bound due to arthritis. She said she also suffers from dementia.
She said David Lester got a handgun from under a couch, rose up and said, "I'm tired of this ----."
The witness said she then heard him arguing with his father in a back room. She said the father told him to "keep your --- ---- hands off me."
She then heard a loud "pow."
Ms. Griffin said she went back and found the father unbuttoning his shirt, then she saw blood. By the time police got there he had slumped to the floor.
The witness said the father and son argued constantly. She said she and David Lester lived on one side of the duplex and his parents on the other, but there was a way inside to cut through to the other side.
David Lester told the detective, "I couldn't take it no more."
He said when he confronted his father, he reached in his pocket as if getting a gun. He then fired. Police said no gun was found on the victim.