Provided by Dime Doe Family via AP
COLUMBIA, S.C. — A South Carolina man was found guilty Friday of murdering a Black transgender woman in the nation's first federal trial for a hate crime based on gender identity.
After deliberating for about four hours, jurors found Daqua Lameek Ritter guilty of a hate crime in the 2019 killing of Dime Doe. Ritter was also found guilty of using a firearm and obstructing justice in connection with the fatal shooting.
A sentencing date has not yet been set. Ritter faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole.
“This case is a testament to our dedicated efforts to combat violence against people who identify as the opposite sex, their sexual orientation, or other protected characteristics,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney. Brook Andrews said: The District of South Carolina spoke to reporters after the ruling.
Federal authorities have previously prosecuted hate crimes based on gender identity, but those cases have never gone to trial. A Mississippi man was sentenced to 49 years in prison after pleading guilty to murdering a 17-year-old transgender woman in 2017.
The four-day trial for Doe's killing focused on a secret sexual relationship between her and Ritter, who was said to have been shaken by the revelations of their affair in the small town of Allendale, according to witness testimony and text messages obtained by the FBI. . Prosecutors accused Ritter of shooting Doe three times with a .22-caliber handgun to prevent further revelations of her involvement with a transgender woman.
Prosecutors said in a police interview that Ritter did not see Doe the day she died. But body camera footage from Doe's traffic stop showed Ritter's distinctive left wrist tattoo on his passenger seat hours before police found him slumped in his car parked in the driveway.
Defense attorney Lindsey Vann argued at trial that there was no physical evidence pointing to Ritter. She said state law enforcement did not process a gunshot residue test he voluntarily took, and that it was not surprising that Ritter would have been with her due to the couple's close relationship and frequent car rides.
Doe's close friends testified that it was no secret in Allendale that she began her social transition as a woman shortly after graduating from high school. She started putting on her skirt, getting her nails done, and putting on her extensions. She and her friends talked about the boys they were seeing. Among them was Ritter, whom he met during a summer visit to New York to stay with her family.
But text messages obtained by the FBI suggest Ritter tried to keep their relationship as secret as possible, prosecutors said. He reminded her to delete her communications from her phone, and her hundreds of text messages he had sent in the month before her death were also deleted.
Their exchange shortly before Doe's death was tense. In one message she sent on July 29, 2019, she complained that Ritter was not reciprocating her own generosity. He responded that he thought she understood that he didn't need her “extra stuff.”
He also said his main girlfriend at the time, Delasia Green, insulted him with a homophobic slur after she found out about the incident. In a July 31 text, Doe said she felt she was used to it and that Ritter should not have told Green about them.
Ritter's attorney said the sampling was only a “snapshot” of the messages. They pointed to other interactions in which Doe encouraged Ritter or expressed gratitude for her many kindnesses.
Witnesses also gave other damaging testimony.
The day Doe died, a group of friends saw Ritter leaving in a silver car with tinted windows. Kordell Jenkins, an acquaintance of Ritter's, said he had seen Doe driving before. When Ritter returned a few hours later, Jenkins said he was wearing new clothes and looking “nervous.”
The friends lit a fire in a bucket to ward off mosquitoes on a blustery summer day, and Ritter emptied his schoolbag into it, Jenkins testified. He couldn't see the contents, but he thought they were items Ritter no longer wanted, perhaps clothing he had previously worn.
Jenkins said the two ran into each other the next day and could see the silver handle of a small firearm protruding from Ritter's waistline. He said Ritter asked him to “get rid of it.”
Defense attorneys suggested Jenkins fabricated the story to please prosecutors and argued it was absurd to think Ritter would ask someone he barely knew to dispose of the murder weapon. They said Ritter's friends gave conflicting accounts of details, such as claims they burned his clothes while facing threats of prosecution if he did not cooperate.
According to eyewitness accounts, when rumors circulated in Allendale that Ritter had killed Doe, he began acting unusually.
Green said that when he showed up at his cousin's house in Columbia a few days later, he was so dirty and smelly that he couldn't stop walking. Her cousin's boyfriend drove Ritter to the bus stop. Before he left, Green asked him if he had killed Doe.
“He lowered his head and gave me a little smile,” Green said.
FBI Special Agent Clay Trippi said Ritter monitored the fallout in New York, citing Facebook messages with another friend, Xavier Pinckney. On August 11, Pinckney told Ritter that no one was “really speaking.” However, by August 14, Pinckney had Ritter receive a visit from state police, who warned him to stay away from Allendale. Someone was “snitching,” he later said.
Pinckney was charged with obstruction of justice. Federal officials claim he made false and misleading statements to investigators.