Nurse fatally shot wife of 59 days because she was 'nagging' him about his drinking

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 who fatally shot his wife less than two months after they got married will spend the rest of his life in prison.

Benjamin Whitaker, a former hospital nurse, was found guilty of felony murder, malice murder, and two counts of aggravated assault by a jury in March, and on Wednesday, he learned his fate. After Whitaker's sentencing was moved up from its original date in May, a judge sentenced Whitaker to life in prison without parole in connection with the fatal shooting of his wife, 25-year-old Tiffani Scarborough.

According to courtroom reporting by local CBS affiliate WMAZ, the couple had only been married for 59 days when Whitaker fired five shots at Scarborough then fled the home they shared in Dublin, Georgia.

Local news outlet The Courier Herald was in the courtroom for Whitaker's first trial last year, when details about Whitaker's arrest were presented. According to The Courier Herald, Whitaker and Scarborough got married on May 1, 2021, after they dated for about a year. Both of them worked as nurses. Whitaker was a registered nurse at Fairview Park Hospital and Scarborough was a nurse at a local OB/GYN office. Scarborough had a young son, and she and the boy moved into Whitaker's house after they got married.

Less than two months after their wedding, on June 29, 2021, Scarborough was dead. Two of her co-workers went to her home when she failed to show up for work that day. When they looked inside the house, they saw bullet holes in the back door. One of the co-workers called the police, who arrived and found Scarborough dead inside the house.

Whitaker was found the next day in a wooded area by his parents' house in a neighboring county. When he was interviewed by police, he told them that Scarborough "was chastising me about having a couple of drinks. That nagging set me off." He told police that he went to their bedroom to retrieve a handgun then "I walked into the kitchen and I shot her." The prosecution said Whitaker shot Scarborough five times.

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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.