Jury has been selected in Dubose death penalty trial

May 28—EATONTON, Ga. — The long-awaited double-murder trial of Ricky Dubose is expected to get underway with opening statements Wednesday in Putnam County Superior Court in Eatonton.

It has taken nearly five years to reach this point.

The trial will start just 12 days shy of marking five years since the killings of Sgt. Curtis Billue and Sgt. Christopher Monica.

The victims worked as officers with the Georgia Department of Corrections. They were assigned to Baldwin State Prison near Milledgeville.

Both victims lived in Baldwin County.

A jury of nine women and eight men was selected in Glynn County Superior Court in Brunswick to hear testimony in the case.

Jurors will be sequestered during the trial, as well as during the punishment phase, should they find the defendant guilty.

Prosecution and defense attorneys spent a little more than three weeks attempting to select a jury from what was expected to be a list of 60 qualified jurors.

"Both sides agreed to move forward with 57 qualified jurors as opposed to 60, and to use five alternates as opposed to six," Ocmulgee Judicial Circuit District Attorney T. Wright Barksdale III told The Union-Recorder in a Tuesday night telephone interview.

Barksdale said he anticipates that the trial lasting three weeks.

He and Chief Assistant District Attorney Allison Mauldin will jointly prosecute the case.

Dubose, meanwhile, will be represented by four defense attorneys.

Opening statements will be heard by jurors, members of the victims' families, friends, reporters, and others, as well as Ocmulgee Judicial Circuit Superior Court Judge Alison T. Burleson, who will preside over the trial.

Dubose's co-defendant, Donnie Rowe, who was tried and convicted last year in Putnam County Superior Court of the murders, was sentenced to two life terms in prison without the possibility of parole after jurors from Grady County could not reach a unanimous verdict when considering death as his punishment.

As was the case involving Rowe, the prosecution team is seeking the death penalty against Dubose.

The murders happened aboard a state transport prison bus traveling along Ga. Route 16 between Long Shoals Road and Eatonton on the morning of June 13, 2017.

Rowe and Dubose were riding on the bus that day with more than two dozen other convicted inmates, all heading from one prison to the Georgia Diagnostic Prison near Jackson in Butts County.

Before Rowe and Dubose escaped, the officers were shot to death.

The two inmates then kicked their way out through the door of the bus and then hijacked a car.

They headed through Eatonton and then into Morgan County before they burglarized a residence, stole some clothing, and later a pickup truck. The inmates then drove to Tennessee, where they committed a series of other violent crimes, including a home invasion where an elderly couple was threatened.

The state will present its case first, followed by defense attorneys.

Dubose has pleaded not guilty to all charges.