When they returned, James waved at courtroom spectators, and the proceeding continued.

Jim Prine, Thomasville-based Southern Judicial Circuit assistant district attorney, said Tammi James and her children had gone to the family home to retrieve personal items. They found locks changed and the back door nailed shut.

The defendant was called. He arrived and opened the house.

James entered the house with a .22-caliber rifle and shot James in the presence of the children when she tried to block the room where she and the children took refuge.

Prine said James shot through a door, and projectiles struck his wife several times. He then struck her on the head with the firearm.

“He also assaulted two of the children with the weapon,” Prine told the court.

James told the judge he understood his rights, which Hardy read to him in the courtroom. He signed the indictment against him, signifying his guilty pleas.

James declined to speak when Hardy asked if he had anything to say.

Baker said James wanted to express “his deep sorrow,” and he could not provide an answer to why he committed the acts, other than he could no longer cope.

“He snapped, and there’s a price to pay for his actions, and he knows that,” Baker told the judge. “ ... He went outside of his natural self.”

“ ... There is some good in this man, your honor,” Baker said, adding that James apologizes to the victims’ family and to the community.

Senior reporter Patti Dozier can be reached at (229) 226-2400, ext. 220.