Background: News footage of Benjamin Whitaker”s house in Dublin, Ga., where Tiffani Scarborough was found dead on June 30, 2021 (WMAZ). Inset (left): Benjamin Whitaker (Laurens County Sheriff’s Office). Inset (right): Tiffani Scarborough (Facebook).
A Georgia man’s new marriage ended in tragedy and a lifetime prison sentence. Benjamin Whitaker, a former nurse, has been sentenced to life without parole after being convicted of murder charges in the death of his wife, Tiffani Scarborough. The couple had been married for less than two months when the incident occurred.
Whitaker was found guilty of felony murder, malice murder, and two counts of aggravated assault in March. His sentencing, initially scheduled for May, was expedited. This past Wednesday, a judge handed down the life sentence for the fatal shooting of 25-year-old Scarborough, marking an end to a chilling case that shocked the local community.
According to reports from WMAZ, a local CBS affiliate, Whitaker and Scarborough had been married for only 59 days at the time of the crime. Whitaker shot Scarborough five times and then fled their shared home in Dublin, Georgia. The couple, both nurses, had tied the knot on May 1, 2021, after a year of dating. Whitaker worked at Fairview Park Hospital, while Scarborough was employed at a local OB/GYN office. She also had a young son, and the family had moved into Whitaker’s home following the wedding.
The tragic events unfolded on June 29, 2021, when Scarborough failed to show up for work. Concerned, two of her co-workers visited her home and noticed bullet holes in the back door. Alarmed, they contacted the police, who discovered Scarborough’s body inside. Whitaker, meanwhile, was found the following day hiding in a wooded area near his parents’ home in a neighboring county.
During police questioning, Whitaker claimed that an argument over his drinking triggered the altercation. “She was chastising me about having a couple of drinks. That nagging set me off,” he reportedly told the officers. He confessed to retrieving a handgun from their bedroom before shooting Scarborough in the kitchen.
The courtroom drama, covered extensively by The Courier Herald, laid bare the tragic and senseless end to what began as a hopeful union. Now, with Whitaker sentenced, the community is left grappling with the loss and the painful reminder of domestic violence’s devastating impact.
Whitaker’s defense attorney told the court that the deadly act was “out of character for him.” He said Whitaker was taking Lexapro and Buspar for depression, which he suffered from after losing several patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. The defense told the court that the drug combination was “dangerous” and prevented Whitaker from knowing what was right or wrong at the time of the murder.
The 2025 trial ended in a mistrial, and a second trial took place in March. The same police interview was presented as evidence, as well as the defense’s argument that Whitaker’s “serotonin syndrome” caused a bad reaction to his medication. In the second trial, the jury found Whitaker guilty after three hours of deliberation.
