Lexington, GA: Fatal shooting being reviewed

By ERIN FRANCE - erin.france@onlineathens.com
Published Friday, August 13, 2010

LEXINGTON - The district attorney plans to decide in a week or two whether to charge an 89-year-old Lexington man for shooting to death his grandson during a struggle Tuesday afternoon in his home

"It's still under investigation at this point," Northern Circuit District Attorney Bob Lavender said Thursday.

Lavender plans to review Oglethorpe County sheriff's deputies' reports and witness statements before deciding whether to file charges against L.S. Anderson, who deputies said fatally shot his grandson in his home off U.S. Highway 78 just west of Lexington.
James Robert "Jim Bob" Tiller II, 30, died after he was shot in the back with a .25-caliber handgun during a struggle in which he choked his grandfather and threatened him with an ice pick, deputies said.
Anderson was taken to the Oglethorpe County Jail and released without being charged.
Lavender expects to complete his review of the case within two weeks, he said Thursday.
Tiller's 29-year-old former girlfriend called deputies to Anderson's home at 95 Bisson Woods Road a few minutes after 5 p.m. Tuesday, according to a deputy's report released Thursday.
Tiller, who lived nearby at 80 Bisson Woods Road, came to his grandfather's home and got into a fight with his ex-girlfriend, deputies said. Anderson told deputies he tried to calm Tiller down, and Tiller attacked him, began choking him and threatened him with an ice pick, deputies said.
"The granddaddy probably stepped in to protect the female," said Oglethorpe County Sheriff Mike Smith.
When deputies arrived, they found Anderson on the back porch of his home and Tiller, fatally wounded, lying on the living room floor. The ex-girlfriend and her son had locked themselves in a bedroom to get away from Tiller, deputies said.
Investigators found the gun near a washing machine, where Anderson told them he'd left it.
It was the second time that day deputies has been to Anderson's house, Smith said.
Deputies went to the home an hour or two before the shooting. Tiller's ex-girlfriend said then that he had threatened her over the telephone. Deputies knocked on the door at Tiller's home but no one answered, Smith said.
A judge ordered Tiller to stay away from his former girlfriend after he was arrested April 26 and faced charges including family violence and disorderly conduct, Smith said.
Tiller had a history of alcohol-related arrests, he said.
But Tiller was well-liked by many in the community and was a genius when it came to fixing computers - he even worked on some county computers on a part-time basis, including those at the EMS offices, said Oglethorpe County Coroner James Mathews, who also heads the county emergency medical service.
"He was a person that if you asked him to do something for you, he would," Mathews said