A 32-year-old Tifton man stood before a Tift Superior Court judge and admitted he was guilty of murdering his girlfriend and her brother in 2006. He was sentenced to serve the rest of his life in prison.

Mickie Ewings and her brother, Phillip Boone, died of gunshot wounds Dec. 5, 2006 in their mother’s Brookfield Mews apartment. Travis Powell, 30 at the time, was arrested the next day and charged with their murders.

Members of Ewings’ family told the Tifton Gazette after the murders that Ewings had lived with years of emotional and physical abuse at the hands of Powell. The two had been in a relationship for at least six years and had a daughter together. Cousins said she was frequently physically abused by Powell, who had hit her in the head with a shovel and bottles, cut her and burned her. Family said she was reluctant to report the abuse for the sake of the couple’s daughters.

According to the article, Ewings had learned that Powell was going to be released from jail on Nov. 30, 2006. She made plans to leave him and packed her belongings and moved in with her mother at Brookfield Mews. Ewings told family members that Powell followed her to work Dec. 5 and threatened to kill her, which he had allegedly done before.

According to family members, Powell dropped their daughter off at Ewings’ mother’s Brookfield Mews apartment that day and hid outside the home. When Boone went outside to take out the garbage, Powell slipped inside the apartment and began firing his weapon. Boone was shot trying to defend his sister. Ewings was holding her daughter when she was shot and a cousin said that the daughter was not hurt because of Ewings’ actions.

Powell stood before Chief Judge Bill Reinhardt Tuesday and told him he had committed the murders. He had made a plea agreement with the state and was sentenced to serve two consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole for the murders and a consecutive 40 years on the related charged of burglary and four gun charges.

“After assessing the procedural posture of the case and considering the wishes of the victims’ family members, it appeared that the interests of justice would be best served by accepting a please which would be a final disposition of the case and which would ensure that Powell would spend the rest of his life in prison,” wrote district attorney C. Paul Bowden in a press release. “Our prayers continue to be with the family and friends of Mickie Ewings and Phillip Boone. We also include in our prayers the family of Travis Powell.”

According to the Tifton Gazette archives, Powell has been arrested twice on charges of possession with intent to distribute, once in February 2004 when police went to Powell’s New Avenue home to arrest him on an aggravated stalking warrant, and again in October when he was pulled over for having an expired license plate. Powell was also charged with battery under the Georgia Family Violence Act in February 2004 and with a probation violation in June 2005.

To contact senior reporter Angie Thompson, call 382-4321.