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Family of fallen trooper relieved at plea deal

ATLANTA — The man charged with killing a Georgia State Trooper in the line of duty will spend the rest of his life in prison.
 
Gregory Favors agreed to a plea deal to avoid the death penalty.
 
Trooper Chadwick Lecroy's widow said the decision was made after much thought and consideration to give her family peace they haven't had over the last three years. And it also provides the security to know she will never see the man who took her husband's life again.
 
"I made the right decision for my family and my kids," said Keisha Lecroy.
 
The widow sat down with Channel 2's Ashley Swann Sunday after an emotional weekend following the finalization in court of a plea deal that put her husband's killer behind bars for life.
 
"I have closure that I can. We can go places and I don't have to ever worry about knowing that he may be there, anything like that. He's never coming out," Lecroy said.
 
On December 27, 2010, Investigators said Gregory Favors shot and killed Lecroy during a traffic stop in northwest Atlanta. Favors was facing the death penalty but agreed to plead guilty to all charges in exchange for life in prison without the possibility of parole.
 
"Keisha's decision was based solely on allowing the family and friends to have peace," said Lecroy's cousin Drew Gordon.
 
Lecroy's family said they came to the decision after researching and speaking with other families of fallen officers who have dealt with the years of uncertainty and additional hearings and appeals associated with death penalty cases.
 
The family calls facing Favors in court Friday both surreal and freeing.
 
"The knowledge that that was the last time that any of us have to lay eyes on the  man who took Chad away from his family," Lecroy said.
 
Favors' lawyers had planned to raise claims that he was intellectually disabled and thereby not eligible to receive a death sentence. They said they view the plea deal as a way to bring some finality to all involved.