Madison Police arrested an Eatonton man on aggravated assault charges after a husband and wife were shot during an altercation at a party attended by mostly family members on Meadow Ridge Road in the early morning hours of Dec. 14.
Tobias Horrez Farley, 44, was arrested in the wake of the incident, but his girlfriend could also face charges, depending on the outcome of an investigation being conducted by Sgt. Andre Johnson of the Madison Police Department.
The altercation began over what was described by witnesses as “a playful butt slap” to Farley’s posterior, but then escalated.
Johnson said Farley objected to the contact instigated by a cousin of the woman he came to the party with and told her to “keep her hands off of him.”
At some point, Farley allegedly took out a firearm from his pocket and showed it to the woman who had slapped his posterior. Johnson said this upset the woman, and her husband told Farley and his companion to leave.
“That’s what started the commotion at the party,” Johnson said.
Words continued to be exchanged, and some of the relatives told the woman she shouldn’t have brought Farley to the party, according to witnesses.
Farley and his companion got in their car, and a fight broke out between her and the wife, who had initially been upset with Farley.
While the two women fought at the car's driver’s door, the husband approached the passenger side and began tussling with Farley, according to Johnson. At some point, the gun went off, and the bullet struck the husband in the chest.
Farley later told Johnson he had five or six rounds in the gun but insisted the gun only fired once. In all the confusion, Johnson said it was difficult to tell if Farley’s gun was the only one that had been fired.
The wounded husband’s wife was also struck in the chest by a bullet. Neither suffered life-threatening injuries due to the gunshot wounds.
However, Johnson said he was able to recover a bullet from the door of the vehicle and learned that the victims of the shooting also had a firearm in their car. Hospital doctors decided not to remove the bullets from the victims, claiming such a procedure would cause more damage than the shootings. However, the decision complicates Detective Johnson's case.
When the wife was questioned about the firearm, she said it was at home. The husband said it was supposed to be in the glove box, but couldn’t find it. After visiting with the victims at the hospital, Johnson saw a magazine in the couple’s cupholder and the gun in the glovebox, where they said it was supposed to be.
Johnson confiscated the weapon and collected the bullet, which was taken to the GBI crime lab in Atlanta for analysis on the morning of Dec. 22.
Johnson said that should the bullet match the weapon belonging to the husband and wife, more arrests may be coming.
Johnson said Farley had blood on his shirt and shoes, and blood was also discovered in the door frame, supporting the theory that the husband and Farley had been tussling over the firearm when it went off.
The husband denied shooting the car door, but some of the witnesses indicated that he told them he had, according to Johnson’s investigation.
Farley’s girlfriend was initially detained for 48 hours, but Johnson said her charges were dropped at least until some of the details of the incident could be sorted out.