AS IT HAPPENED Wildfire reaches Jasper Wednesday night, causes 'significant loss'
One of two wildfires threatening Jasper National Park reached the townsite Wednesday night and caused 'significant loss.'
A South Carolina man was found guilty Friday of killing a Black transgender woman after the exposure of their secret sexual relationship in the nation’s first federal trial over a hate crime based on gender identity.
After deliberating for roughly four hours, jurors convicted Daqua Lameek Ritter of a hate crime for the murder of Dime Doe in 2019. Ritter was also found guilty of using a firearm in connection with the fatal shooting and obstructing justice. A sentencing date has not yet been scheduled. Ritter faces a maximum of life imprisonment without parole.
“This case stands as a testament to our committed effort to fight violence that is targeted against those who may identify as a member of the opposite sex, for their sexual orientation or for any other protected characteristics,” Brook Andrews, an assistant U.S. attorney for the District of South Carolina, told reporters after the verdict.
The four-day trial over Doe's killing centered on the clandestine relationship between her and Ritter, the latter of whom had grown agitated by the exposure 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 revelation of his involvement with a transgender woman.
Doe’s close friends testified that it was no secret in Allendale that she had begun her social transition as a woman shortly after graduating high school. She started dressing in skirts, getting her nails done and wearing extensions. She and her friends discussed boys they were seeing — including Ritter, whom she met during one of his many summertime visits from New York to stay with family.
But text messages obtained by the FBI suggested that Ritter sought to keep their relationship under wraps as much as possible, prosecutors said. He reminded her to delete their communications from her phone, and hundreds of texts sent in the month before her death were removed.
Shortly before Doe’s death, their exchanges grew tense. In one message from July 29, 2019, she complained that Ritter did not reciprocate her generosity. He replied that he thought they had an understanding that she didn’t need the “extra stuff.”
He also told her that Delasia Green, his main girlfriend at the time, had insulted him with a homophobic slur after learning of the affair. In a July 31 text, Doe said she felt used and Ritter should never have let Green find out about them.
Ritter’s defense attorneys said the sampling represented only a “snapshot” of their messages. They pointed to other exchanges where Doe encouraged Ritter, or where he thanked her for one of her many kindnesses.
Prosecutors presented police interviews in which Ritter said he did not see Doe the day she died. But body camera video from a traffic stop of Doe showed Ritter's distinctive left wrist tattoo on a person in the passenger seat hours before police found her slumped in the car, parked in a driveway.
Defense lawyer Lindsey Vann argued at trial that no physical evidence pointed to Ritter. State law enforcement never processed a gunshot residue test that he took voluntarily, she said, and the pair's intimate relationship and frequent car rides made it no surprise that Ritter would have been with her.
Witnesses offered other damaging testimony.
On the day Doe died, a group of friends saw Ritter ride away in a silver car with tinted windows — a vehicle that Ritter’s acquaintance Kordell Jenkins said he had seen Doe drive previously. When Ritter returned several hours later, Jenkins said, he wore a new outfit and appeared “on edge.”
The friends built a fire in a barrel to smoke out the mosquitoes on that buggy summer day, and Ritter emptied his book bag into it, Jenkins testified. He said he couldn’t see the contents but assumed they were items Ritter no longer wanted, possibly the clothes he wore earlier.
The two ran into each other the following day, Jenkins said, and he could see the silver handle of a small firearm sticking out from Ritter's waistline. He said Ritter asked him to “get it gone.”
Defense attorneys suggested that Jenkins fabricated the story to please prosecutors and argued it was preposterous to think Ritter would ask someone he barely knew to dispose of a murder weapon. They said Ritter’s friends gave conflicting accounts about details like the purported burning of his clothes while facing the threat of prosecution if they failed to cooperate.
With Allendale abuzz with rumors that Ritter killed Doe, he began behaving uncharacteristically, according to witness testimony.
Green said that when he showed up days later at her cousin’s house in Columbia, he was dirty, smelly and couldn’t stop pacing. Her cousin’s boyfriend gave Ritter a ride to the bus stop. Before he left, Green asked him if he had killed Doe.
“He dropped his head and gave me a little smirk,” Green said.
Ritter monitored the fallout from New York, FBI Special Agent Clay Trippi said, citing Facebook messages with another friend, Xavier Pinckney. On Aug. 11, Pinckney told Ritter that nobody was “really talking." But by Aug. 14, Pinckney was warning Ritter to stay away from Allendale because he had been visited by state police. Somebody was “snitching,” he later said.
Pinckney faces charges of obstructing justice. Federal officials allege he gave false and misleading statements to investigators.
Although federal officials have previously prosecuted hate crimes based on gender identity, the cases never reached trial. A Mississippi man received a 49-year prison sentence in 2017 as part of a plea deal after he admitted to killing a 17-year-old transgender woman.
Pollard is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
One of two wildfires threatening Jasper National Park reached the townsite Wednesday night and caused 'significant loss.'
Alberta has called in the Canadian Armed Forces to help assist with the worsening wildfire situation in the province.
U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday delivered a solemn call to voters to defend the country's democracy as he laid out in an Oval Office address his decision to drop his bid for reelection and throw his support behind Vice President Kamala Harris.
Staff at a Barrie child care centre say they are frustrated by what they call a local MPP's inadequate response after a car crashed through a window in one of the toddler rooms.
The North American Aerospace Defence Command (Norad) intercepted two Russian and two Chinese bombers flying near Alaska Wednesday in what appears to be the first time the two countries have been intercepted while operating together.
An analyst and an assistant coach with Canada Soccer are being removed from the Canadian Olympic Team and 'sent home immediately,' according to the Canadian Olympic Committee.
After a handful of Australian water polo players tested positive for COVID-19 this week, questions have emerged around how the spread of the disease will be mitigated at the Summer Olympic Games in Paris.
A B.C. man who was hired to help a non-profit build a food hub but instead spent the money on personal expenses – including travel, restaurants, booze and cannabis – has been ordered to pay more than $120,000 in damages.
Two people are dead and two others suffered serious injuries following a shooting that police have described as a 'gun battle' outside a plaza in Scarborough, Ont. early Wednesday morning.
A local First Nations elder and veteran is helping to bring the Ojibwe language to a well-known film for the first time.
A cat who fled her Montreal home nearly a decade ago has been reunited with her family after being found in Ottawa.
A woman in Waterloo, Ont. is out thousands of dollars for a car crash she wasn’t involved in.
A swarm of bees living in a lamppost in Winnipeg’s Sage Creek neighbourhood has found a new home for its hive.
Around 100 acres of Manitoba Crown Land near the Saskatchewan border is being returned to the Métis community.
Nova Scotia is suspending the licensed Cape Breton moose hunt for three years due to what the province is calling a “significant drop” in the population.
A well-known childhood prank known as 'nicky nicky nine doors,' or 'ding dong ditch,' has escalated into a more serious game that could lead to charges for some Surrey, B.C. teens.
It's been more than a month since their good friend was seriously hurt in an accident and two teens from Riverview, N.B., are still having a hard time dealing with it.
Halifax bridges have collected thousands of coins from around the world.