Anthony Templet is a free man today after Baton Rouge, Louisiana court officials gave him a plea agreement with no additional jail or prison time. He was sentenced to five years probation after he pleaded no contest to a negligent homicide charge. Templet is now 20.
Templet, whose full name is Anthony Joseph Templet, was sentenced in March 2021, so he has about four years left on his probation time.
Templet, who sometimes goes by A.J., told his story on the new Netflix docuseries, “I Just Killed My Dad,” named for his 911 call. Listen to the full 911 call here. When attorneys and investigators began examining his case, they uncovered decades of abuse and domestic violence, and a mother who had been searching for him for years as a missing person.
Templet confessed to shooting his father, Burt Templet, killing him with a gunshot wound to the head. The teen told investigators that he feared for his life and did not known any other way to stop the psychological abuse that included his father surveilling the entire family with cameras. Burt Templet was also convicted of aggravated assault and other serious charges related to the abuse of Templet’s mother, Teresa Thompson.
Here’s what you need to know:
Templet Is Eligible to Have His Record Expunged If He Meets the Terms of His Release
Netflix’s new true-crime docuseries “I Just Killed My Dad” gets its name from an admission by then 17-year-old Anthony Templet who fired three bullets at his dad, Burt Templet, in June 2019.
Templet’s probation came with some uncommon conditions, including a requirement to complete his GED, according to WAFB. His stepmother, Susan Templet, described teaching Anthony Templet basic lessons at age 10 that most children would have learned in kindergarten. She said she taught him how to write his letters and began teaching him math.
Susan Templet said she taught the boy addition, subtraction and multiplication, but when they got to division, Burt Templet told them to stop. He told her his son could just use a calculator for division.
Susan Templet and Peyton Mannino described the toxic and abusive living environment they experienced with Burt Templet. They were constantly watched on cameras and through other tracking devices. Susan Templet said her husband received notifications on his phone that her car engine had stopped.
Mannino said on the show that living with Burt Templet was like living “in hell.”
Anthony Templet and his attorney, Jarrett Ambeau, discussed on the show that keeping his son out of school was likely a way to hide the abuse. His mother would have no way to find him, and when he was so deeply isolated he could not tell anyone about the conditions at home. Read more about Ambeau here.
Anthony Templet’s supervised probation conditions also include counseling, requirements to hold a job and enroll full time in school. If he meets those conditions, he is eligible to have his record expunged, WAFB reported.
Prosecutor Dana Cummings Said That Jail or Prison Time Would Not Benefit Templet or Society
Get ready for the unbelievable, never-been-told-before true story of the Templet family.
I Just Killed My Dad is now on Netflix.
Cummings, the assistant district attorney who served as the prosecutor for Templet’s case, told WAFB that no purpose would be served by putting Templet in prison.
“What would time in jail do for this young man who has never actually had a chance to learn or to have friends or to be in the world,” she told the news outlet. “What would that achieve? I just think it would keep him from ever being able to be productive.”
Ambeau told the news station that the verdict was the best possible outcome for his client.
“When I saw this injustice, I said, ‘Absolutely, no way should this kid be in jail,” he said. “Well, that’s the outcome we have. It may not be the thing we have hoped but this is an imperfect system. We try to find the best possible justice and I think we got that today.”
READ NEXT: Anthony Templet’s 911 Call: Listen to the Full ‘I Just Killed My Dad’ Recording