An East Cobb man who engaged with a standoff with police and shot at officers and neighbors in a 2020 incident was given a 35-year sentence, the Cobb District Attorney’s office said Tuesday.
The DA’s office said Donald Terry Welborn, Jr., must serve the first 18 of those years in prison in a sentence handed down by Cobb Superior Court Judge Ann Harris.
In a news release, the DA’s office said Welborn, now 60, pleaded guilty to nine counts of aggravated assault on police officers, three counts of aggravated assault on civilians and one count of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony.
Welborn was arrested by Cobb Police on Sept. 22, 2020, at a home on Kingsley Drive in the New Castle neighborhood off Post Oak Tritt Road after a standoff lasting several hours.
According to police, Welborn’s wife and daughter reported that Welborn began shooting inside the home around 5:30 a.m., saying he was intoxicated, and struck a ceiling fan and a ceiling.
Police arrived and closed off the neighborhood. They said said the women escaped the home unharmed, but Welborn remained inside, firing at two nearby homes.
When police reached the home, according to the DA’s office, officers tried to talk him into coming outside, but he initially refused, and began shooting at them “with multiple firearms over a short period of time.
“Officers had to duck behind vehicles as projectiles whizzed by their heads, striking treetops, the asphalt roadway, and houses,” the DA’s office release said.
The Cobb Police SWAT team took over the scene and Welborn surrendered peacefully after several hours.
The DA’s office said the investigation also determined that one of neighbors, a family with two parents and two children, “hid in a closet, terrified, for hours during the standoff.
“One bullet from a high-powered rifle struck their aquarium located in their living room, killing the fish and flooding the area. In total, detectives located 68 spent shell casings of various calibers, 32 guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition.”
Welborn was indicted in May 2021 by a Cobb grand jury after his attorney unsuccessfully tried to get him transferred to a mental health court.
Cobb court records indicate that one of the women, Susan Welborn, was Welborn’s wife, but they had been separated. She filed for divorce in Cobb Superior Court on the same day of the shootings.
Court records show that those proceedings are continuing.
Related:
- Atlanta man gets life sentence for raping Cobb woman
- Cobb Police capture suspect in Atlanta mass shooting
- Man sentenced to 15 years for stalking Indian Hills woman
- East Cobb investment adviser pleads guilty to Ponzi scheme
- Cobb ‘crawling burglar’ indicted on 25 counts
- Suspect in murders of Cobb Sheriff’s deputies gets 2 life terms
- East Cobb man sentenced for child sexual exploitation
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