Gerald McCants, 49, has been charged in Texas with a particularly heinous crime. He is accused of luring his 78-year-old father to a cliff and then pushing him off. His father amazingly survived and told police that he could hear his son laughing as he fell.
According to police, McCants told his father that he wanted to show him a rattlesnake he found. He drove him to the cliff and allegedly got him to look over the edge before pushing him over. The father survived the fall with cuts and abrasions.
What is most remarkable about this case is that McCants was not initially charged with attempted murder but third-degree felony injury to an elderly person. I would have thought that he would face both of those charges at a minimum. After all, Austin’s Fox 7 reported that the father gave a full and incriminating statement against his son. I cannot imagine how pushing a 78-year-old man off a cliff would be anything other than attempted murder.
What is also clear is that Texas makes some pretty tough 78-year-olds.