Anthony Templet Killed His Father in 2019. But That's Not The Whole Story.
“I just uh…killed my dad. What do I need to tell you?”
Netflix’s latest true crime documentary, I Just Killed My Dad, begins with the recording of the 911 call that Anthony Templet, age 17, placed on June 3, 2019 after shooting his father Burt in their Louisiana home. The three-episode original series retells the events of that fateful evening and Anthony’s subsequent arrest, in which he appears largely unemotional and apathetic in police footage. But slowly over the following episodes, the doc reveals the abuse and control Anthony suffered throughout his childhood at the hands of his father, shedding a new light on the 2019 shooting. Three years later, here’s where Anthony Templet, 20, is now.
Anthony was initially charged with second-degree murder, which was later reduced to manslaughter. But gradually, the details of his life came into clearer focus after his biological mother was located and revealed the true story of Anthony’s early childhood. When Anthony was five years old, his father reportedly took him away from his mother, who had custody of him after Burt routinely abused her. He took Anthony from Texas to Louisiana, where he never enrolled him in school or allowed him to speak to other children or neighbors, thus ensuring that Anthony’s mother would be unable to locate him. As Anthony aged, he turned inward—always fearful of upsetting his father, who tracked him at all times and installed cameras all over their home.
In Netflix’s documentary, Anthony’s stepmother, Susan, recalls trying to teach Anthony how to read, write, and do basic math as a 10-year-old, but knowing that it was too late to enroll him in school at his appropriate age-level grade. Burt Templet was a physically, verbally, and mentally abusive father to Anthony, and by June of 2019, Susan had left Burt, which left Anthony alone in the home with his increasingly paranoid, angry, and armed father. When his father woke him up in the middle of the night on June 3 to go through his phone, accusing him of being in communication with his stepmother Susan, Anthony ran into Burt’s room, grabbed two guns, and fired three times at his father.
On December 19, 2019, Anthony was allowed to be released on a lessened bond, and provided access to psychiatrists. On March 1, 2021, the District Attorney’s Office and Anthony’s defense attorney came to a mutual agreement and offered Anthony a negligent homicide plea, which he pleaded no contest to. “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,” prosecutor Dana Cummings said. “What would that achieve? I just think it would keep him from ever being able to be productive.” He received five years on probation with credit for time previously served, as well as an order to obtain his GED, attend counseling, and either get a full-time job or attend school full-time. If he meets all these requirements, he will be eligible to have his record expunged.
Though Anthony has kept a low profile since taking the plea deal last year, he has reunited with his birth mother and grandmother in Texas, and intends to move on and lead a normal life. “You get your freedom stripped away from you in jail,” Anthony explains at the end of the documentary. “It just kind of made me realize that…I just want to be normal. I just want to live normally and be happy and just move on.”
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