State of Georgia v. Lacy Jolee Boles

Lacy Jolee Boles is on trial in the Paulding County Superior Court in Dallas, Georgia, charged with malice murder, felony murder and aggravated assault in the death of her husband, Daniel Lee Akers. Daniel was 36, a father of five who worked in the sheet metal trade. Shortly after 12:44 a.m. on December 22, 2019, a 911 call from the couple's home on Braemill Court reported a possible suicide attempt. Deputies found Daniel dead of a single gunshot wound to the head, and Lacy Boles told them he had shot himself. She has pleaded not guilty. She is presumed innocent, and the State alone carries the burden of proving each charge beyond a reasonable doubt.

The detectives who went to the house that night said what they saw did not fit a suicide, and that her statements did not match the physical evidence. Five months later, on May 29, 2020, the GBI Medical Examiner's Office ruled the wound was not self-inflicted and called the death a homicide. She was arrested that day and released a week later on a $100,000 bond, where she has remained. Her attorney, Brian Steel, says Daniel Akers took his own life. Before trial, Judge Bucci ruled that part of a 13-minute recording from Daniel's phone is hearsay and kept it from the jury.

This trial comes down to one gunshot and two stories. The State has to prove that Daniel Akers did not fire the gun himself, and under Georgia law a case built on circumstantial evidence must rule out every other reasonable explanation. The defense does not have to prove anything. A first attempt at this trial ended in June 2026 when a prospective juror asked ChatGPT about the case and shared what it said; the judge declared a mistrial and held that juror in contempt. We will be there every court day, asking whether the medical examiner's finding and the crime scene work hold up under cross-examination, and whether the process is fair to Daniel's family and to the woman accused. Start with the background report below, then follow the trial with us.