Defiant Gobert gets capital punishment
Murder trial ends with courtroom outburst as condemned killer lashes out at victim's sister with profanity-laced tirade
By Steven Kreytak
AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Thursday, March 11, 2010
After a Travis County jury on Wednesday sentenced Milton Dwayne Gobert to death for the 2003 stabbing death of Mel Kernena Cotton, the victim's sister took the witness stand and called Cotton, a Velocity Credit Union teller and single mother, "an angel."
"That (expletive) wasn't no angel, that was a (expletive)," Gobert, 37, screamed from the defense table, cutting off Ethel McPherson midsentence.
Gobert, who claimed that the killing was in self-defense, stood and turned to Cotton's family, seated in the front row on the opposite side of the courtroom, and continued to scream profanities. He yelled again when state District Judge Bob Perkins told him to be quiet. Then on Perkins' orders, sheriff's deputies escorted Gobert from the courtroom while he yelled even more profanity.
