Alleged killer asks judge if he can ‘talk to somebody about mental health’

A man accused of bludgeoning and strangling his girlfriend to death on Thursday did not heed the judge’s warning and spoke at his first appearance.

“Is there any way I could talk to somebody about mental health? Because I take medications,” 49-year-old Jessie Gray said Saturday afternoon in Bibb County Magistrate Court.

Gray is accused of killing 58-year-old Brenda Gail Faulkner at her boarding house at 1776 First Avenue in Macon’s Pleasant Hill neighborhood. Authorities had been looking for Gray since her body was found Thursday morning, and a tip to Macon Regional Crimestoppers led to his arrest Friday night on Boulevard.

U.S. Marshals found Gray hiding behind a house in east Macon, according to a news release from the sheriff’s office.

Magistrate Judge William M. Shurling III told Gray he could talk to someone about mental health “as soon as you talk to your lawyer.”

“They can appoint one for you if you can’t afford it,” the judge said. “In the meantime, you can remain silent.”

Bond was denied for Gray and will have to be set in Superior Court at a later date.

In December, a Telegraph reporter interviewed Gray on video after a fire at Faulkner’s ocean blue house, just up an embankment from Interstate 75 off the Hardeman Avenue exit.

Gray, wearing black rimmed eye glasses at the time, told the reporter he was inside the house when it became smokey, and crawled out of a window.

Faulkner’s slaying makes the third homicide in Bibb County this year.

This story was originally published February 18, 2017 at 2:02 PM with the headline "Alleged killer asks judge if he can ‘talk to somebody about mental health’."