Georgia Man Shoots Pregnant Girlfriend Because He Didn’t Want the Child, Police Say

A Georgia man will spend decades in prison after prosecutors said he shot his pregnant girlfriend in the head because he did not want her to have the child.

A jury convicted Donald Wooten, 27, of attempted murder, criminal attempt to commit feticide and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. Earlier this week, he was sentenced to 60 years in prison, according to the DeKalb County District Attorney’s Office.

The attack reportedly happened in March 2023 near a walking trail at Chapel Hill Park.

“The defendant’s motive was to kill the unborn child by shooting the victim in the head,” the affidavit stated. “As a result of this incident, the victim had to undergo an emergency C-section … to save her baby.”

Investigators said the woman was 22 weeks pregnant when she was discovered near the trail around 7 a.m. after a 911 caller reported an unresponsive woman.

The woman survived the shooting, but later work from a coma with no memory of the attack. And to save the baby, the medical staff had to perform an emergency C-section.

Authorities claim that at first detectives, could not interview her because she was incoherent. Then the family members told Police they believed Wooten was responsible.

According to officials, Wooten admitted that he “did not want to victim to have the child and he was upset that victim chose to go through with the pregnancy.”

Police shared that Wooten first claimed he had gone to a movie with the victim before returning to the apartment complex where they lived. He later told officers he went to a second apartment in Atlanta after the parted ways.

A movie receipt and text messages were found later to confirm that the couple had gone to the theatre. But the cell phone location did not support Wooten’s statements of where he went afterwards.

Two months after the shooting, detectives interviewed the victim in the hospital. She remembered walking through the park with Wooten late at night, but said she could not remember being shot.

“The victim’s last memory is walking in the park with the defendant,” prosecutors said.

Authorities later, with the help of text messages, realised that the couple had argued about the pregnancy and their future together. Prosecutors also said that Wooten sent messages asking someone to retrieve a gun and bullets from his apartment after the shooting.

In recorded jail call records, Wooten allegedly asked a relative to remotely wipe his cell phone after police seized it as evidence. However, investigators extracted data from the device before it was erased.