Man guilty of killing transgender woman in hate crime trial over gender identity

COLUMBIA, S.C. — A South Carolina man was discovered responsible Friday of killing a Black transgender girl within the nation’s first federal trial over a hate crime primarily based on gender id.

After deliberating for roughly 4 hours, jurors convicted Daqua Lameek Ritter of a hate crime for the homicide of Dime Doe in 2019. Ritter was additionally discovered responsible of utilizing a firearm in reference to the deadly capturing and obstructing justice.

A sentencing date has not but been scheduled. Ritter faces a most of life imprisonment with out parole.

“This case stands as a testomony to our dedicated effort to combat violence that’s focused in opposition to those that could determine as a member of the other intercourse, for his or her sexual orientation or for another protected traits,” Brook Andrews, an assistant U.S. lawyer for the District of South Carolina, informed reporters after the decision.

Whereas federal officers have beforehand prosecuted hate crimes primarily based on gender id, the circumstances by no means reached trial. A Mississippi man obtained a 49-year jail sentence in 2017 as a part of a plea deal after he admitted to killing a 17-year-old transgender girl.

The four-day trial over Doe’s killing centered on the key sexual relationship between her and Ritter, the latter of whom had grown agitated by the publicity of their affair within the small city of Allendale, in response to witness testimony and textual content messages obtained by the FBI. Prosecutors accused Ritter of capturing Doe thrice with a .22 caliber handgun to stop additional revelation of his involvement with a transgender girl.

Prosecutors introduced police interviews wherein Ritter stated he didn’t see Doe the day she died. However physique digital camera video from a visitors cease of Doe confirmed Ritter’s distinctive left wrist tattoo on an individual within the passenger seat hours earlier than police discovered her slumped within the automobile, parked in a driveway.

Protection lawyer Lindsey Vann argued at trial that no bodily proof pointed to Ritter. State regulation enforcement by no means processed a gunshot residue check that he took voluntarily, she stated, and the pair’s intimate relationship and frequent automobile rides made it no shock that Ritter would have been along with her.

Doe’s shut pals testified that it was no secret in Allendale that she had begun her social transition as a girl shortly after graduating highschool. She began dressing in skirts, getting her nails finished and carrying extensions. She and her pals mentioned boys they had been seeing — together with Ritter, whom she met throughout one in every of his many summertime visits from New York to stick with household.

However textual content messages obtained by the FBI steered that Ritter sought to maintain their relationship below wraps as a lot as doable, prosecutors stated. He reminded her to delete their communications from her telephone, and a whole lot of texts despatched within the month earlier than her loss of life had been eliminated.

Shortly earlier than Doe’s loss of life, their exchanges grew tense. In a single message from July 29, 2019, she complained that Ritter didn’t reciprocate her generosity. He replied that he thought they’d an understanding that she did not want the “additional stuff.”

He additionally informed her that Delasia Inexperienced, his important girlfriend on the time, had insulted him with a homophobic slur after studying of the affair. In a July 31 textual content, Doe stated she felt used and Ritter ought to by no means have let Inexperienced discover out about them.

Ritter’s protection attorneys stated the sampling represented solely a “snapshot” of their messages. They pointed to different exchanges the place Doe inspired Ritter, or the place he thanked her for one in every of her many kindnesses.

Witnesses supplied different damaging testimony.

On the day Doe died, a bunch of pals noticed Ritter journey away in a silver automobile with tinted home windows — a car that Ritter’s acquaintance Kordell Jenkins stated he had seen Doe drive beforehand. When Ritter returned a number of hours later, Jenkins stated, he wore a brand new outfit and appeared “on edge.”

The chums constructed a fireplace in a barrel to smoke out the mosquitoes on that buggy summer time day, and Ritter emptied his guide bag into it, Jenkins testified. He stated he could not see the contents however assumed they had been objects Ritter not wished, presumably the garments he wore earlier.

The 2 bumped into bumped into one another the next day, Jenkins stated, and he might see the silver deal with of a small firearm protruding from Ritter’s waistline. He stated Ritter requested him to “get it gone.”

Protection attorneys steered that Jenkins fabricated the story to please prosecutors and argued it was preposterous to suppose Ritter would ask somebody he barely knew to eliminate a homicide weapon. They stated Ritter’s pals gave conflicting accounts about particulars just like the purported burning of his garments whereas dealing with the specter of prosecution in the event that they did not cooperate.

With Allendale abuzz with rumors that Ritter killed Doe, he started behaving uncharacteristically, in response to witness testimony.

Inexperienced stated that when he confirmed up days later at her cousin’s home in Columbia, he was soiled, smelly and could not cease pacing. Her cousin’s boyfriend gave Ritter a journey to the bus cease. Earlier than he left, Inexperienced requested him if he had killed Doe.

“He dropped his head and gave me a bit of smirk,” Inexperienced stated.

Ritter monitored the fallout from New York, FBI Particular Agent Clay Trippi stated, citing Fb messages with one other pal, Xavier Pinckney. On Aug. 11, Pinckney informed Ritter that no one was “actually speaking.” However by Aug. 14, Pinckney was warning Ritter to avoid Allendale as a result of he had been visited by state police. Any person was “snitching,” he later stated.

Pinckney faces fees of obstructing justice. Federal officers allege he gave false and deceptive statements to investigators.