Victims Protest at Covington Killer's Funeral

COVINGTON, Ga. -- "God knows how I feel," says Anita King, "His Son was murdered."

Anita King made that comment after driving from Asheville, North Carolina for a Thursday afternoon funeral in Covington.

Only she wasn't invited or welcome.

King, her sister and a few friends stood across the street from the Grace United Methodist Church on Washington Street to protest against the man being buried.

Three years ago a grinning Lanny Barnes killed King's nearly 2-year-old daughter, Avery, after running over her repeatedly with his car.

He deliberately ran his car into King, her sister and their 3 young children in the parking lot of a McDonald's restaurant.

To this day, no one even knows why.

To avoid the death penalty, Barnes pleaded guilty to one count of murder and four of aggravated assault in 2007 in exchange for life without parole.

He recently died in prison from leukemia, taking his motive with him.

Some of the victims were involved in ministry at the time of the attack and Anita King still claims her faith.

"I wouldn't be able to do this if I did not have my faith," explaining her protest to 11Alive News, "and have my certainty that I will see Avery again in heaven one day."

Covington Police officers kept an eye on the protestors, making sure they obeyed their permit, which required them to stay across the street from the funeral.

Lanny Barnes' family kept their thoughts about the protest private, but one of their friends and long time church member Janet Goodman expressed hers.

"The whole community has sympathy for the (King) family," she told us, "but it's both sides of families and this is a person who's dead and we need to be respectful of that as well."

I asked Anita King if she thinks she can ever forgive Barnes for taking her daughter's life.

"I'm not God," she told me, "I don't think that I'm responsible for forgiving this man for murdering my daughter, I don't think I ever could."

Church member Janet Goodman hopes differently.

"I'm sure, in time, they will forgive him," she says, "he didn't know what he was doing, there's no doubt about that."

Newton County's Sheriff says taxpayers paid nearly a half-million dollars for Barnes' medical care in just the 17 months he was in their local jail.

He said it's the most ever spent on an inmate in 40 years.