What happened to Anthony Templet from 'I Just Killed My Dad' on Netflix?

Life hasn't been easy for Anthony Templet.

The now 20-year-old recalls the horror he's experienced in I Just Killed My Dad, Netflix's new docu-series from Skye Borgman. The title might be blunt, but as with any true crime on Netflix, the story is multilayered and filled with twists. Despite it all, he's attempting to lead a normal life.

Anthony Templet's story

In 2008, 5-year-old Anthony was taken from his mother, Linda Thompson, by his father and Thompson's ex-husband, Burt Templet. From there, Burt raised the young boy on his own in Louisiana, subjecting him to horrific abuse. 

Anthony was denied an education, sheltered from the outside world and left under his father's watchful eye—and security cameras installed throughout their Baton Rogue home. He was allegedlly lead to believe by his father that Thompson was nothing more than a junkie who did not want anything to do with her son. 

In 2019 an altercation erupted between the father-son duo that changed everything.

According to Fox, Burt tried to confiscate Anthony's phone to see if he had reached out to Susan, Burt ex-wife. (Allegedlly, Susan had filed an order of protection against Burt just a few months before he was shot.) The argument escalated into a physical altercation, which ended with a shooting. 

"He tried to attack me," Anthony revealed to 9-1-1 in the documentary. "Then, we got into a fist fight. Then, I ran in his room, closed the door and got a gun. As I unlocked the door, he tried to…and then I shot him. I just killed my dad. I shot him three times."

After Anthony pulled the trigger and made national news for taking his father's life, Thompson and her daughter, Anthony's half-sister, finally learned of his whereabouts—after it seemed like they'd never be reunited with him.

"After 11 years of waiting to hear if my brother was still alive, he is found," Anthony's half-sister, Natasha told WAFB upon the shooting. "He has been secluded and abused all these years by his own father. My brave brother had to defend himself for the last time against that evil man." 

She added, "I can only imagine what Anthony’s been through. When he was a baby, Burt would hold him in his arms while abusing my mother."

Where is Anthony Templet today?

As the story unravels—which we see in the docu-series trailer—there are sides insisting that Anthony took Burt's life as an act of self-defense. Others claim that the young man never had any physical evidence of abuse at the hands of his father. Things get complicated and people are not all on the same page. 

"The scariest thing about Anthony is that he’s just kind of a blank slate," someone reveals in the promo. "I don’t know if he has empathy."

Anthony had confessed to the crime and was awaiting trial for manslaughter in 2019. After his release in 2021, he was ordered five years' probation, as his lawyer negotiated a plea deal and insisted that the teen was acting in self-defense.

Per Newsweek, he was given the special condition of obtaining his high school diploma, attending counseling and finding full-time employment or education in order to have his criminal record cleared. 

Much like Borgman's July 2022 docu-series, Girl in the Picture, which covers the incredibly complicated and heartbreaking Sharon Marshall case, Anthony's experience deals with kidnapping, abuse and murder. Each project might focus on different subjects, but the themes are very similar—and equally as unsettling. I Just Killed My Dad, is now streaming on Netflix. 

If you're interested in more true crime stories—as engaging as they are unbelievable, switch over to FX (or Hulu) for Children of the Underground, a deep dive into Faye Yager's secretive organization. In September, Discovery+ will stream an Armie Hammer documentary about his and his family's alleged abuse over the years.