Timeline, texts were key in reaching SC transgender hate crime verdict, foreperson says

When Deanna “Dee” Elder walked into the jury room, her mind was far from made up. But after four hours of deliberations she was one of twelve jurors who found Daqua Ritter guilty of murdering Dime Doe, a transgender woman that he was in a secret relationship with.

The verdict, delivered Friday night, followed a four-day trial in the U.S. District Court in Columbia, South Carolina. It was the first time in the U.S. that a person was convicted of murder under the Matthew Shepherd and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act where gender-identity was the motive.

Elder, who served as the jury foreperson, didn’t know the case was historic until after the verdict. In fact, Elder, 41, a transgender woman, was “shocked” she was chosen for the jury at all.

“I made it clear on the (jury) questionnaire that I’m transgender and I don’t think that will affect my ability to be fair in this case,” said Elder, who reached out to The State Media Co.. “My interest from the very beginning was to figure out who did this horrible thing.”

Ritter, 27, was also charged with possessing a weapon during a violent crime and obstructing justice by lying to investigators.

Going into deliberations shortly after 5 p.m. Friday, Elder said that she was only convinced of the third charge, that Ritter had obstructed justice by lying to investigators.

“Not everyone walked into that room decided,” Elder said. “Some did, some didn’t. I was among those undecided. I wasn’t the last holdout, but I was among the last.”

An initial, secret ballot showed the jury was split three ways on the three counts: guilty, not guilty or undecided. The jury was drawn from around South Carolina, with members from the Midlands, Upstate, and Aiken areas.

As the deliberations went on, Elder said the question she grappled with the most was whether Ritter was motivated by Doe’s gender identity to commit the crime.

“It’s not that I didn’t believe it, it’s just that it’s so hard to prove,” Elder said. The government “absolutely had to convince me,” Elder said. “He was innocent until I was absolutely sure beyond a reasonable doubt that he was proven guilty.”

It was ultimately Ritter’s conversations with others that contained homophobic slurs, as well as texts between Ritter and Doe, that convinced Elder that he was guilty. Federal prosecutors introduced 749 messages between Ritter and Doe sent over the TextNow messaging app between July 3, 2019, and early August. Roughly half of those messages were deleted.

The texts, some of which were read in open court, revealed an increasingly tense and volatile relationship. Ritter, 22 at the time, would ask Doe, 24, for favors, but became abusive and demanding, ordering her to delete his messages and not to tell anyone about him.

“I feel like you use me,” Doe wrote. “I break my neck to do s--- for you.”

Elder also said that she needed to be convinced that Ritter committed the murder. Throughout the trial, Ritter’s attorneys argued that the case was a “whodunnit,” as there was no direct evidence or eyewitness testimony of Ritter pulling the trigger.

Assembling a timeline of the day Doe was killed required jurors to sort through what Elder called a “shotgun blast” of information from 27 witnesses. Their testimony differed in times, dates and details.

But once they had reviewed the testimony, the timeline of events on Aug. 4 was convincing circumstantial evidence, Elder said. In particular, she highlighted Ritter’s arrival at his uncle’s house on Concord School Road, a half mile from where Doe’s body was found the afternoon of the murder, asking for a ride. Ritter had last been seen in Doe’s car around 3:02 p.m., when he was caught on a sheriff’s deputy’s body cam as the deputy gave Doe a speeding ticket.

As jurors deliberated into the night, they were given sandwiches from Jimmy John’s. They ate quickly, and some even continued to review exhibits while they ate and sat around a 12-person conference table. Conversations stayed respectful and calm, Elder said. Some jurors refreshed their memories with notes they had taken during the trial and wrote up timelines of the events of Aug. 4.

After five or six votes, the jury reached a unanimous decision. It wasn’t a great feeling, said Elder, who was critical of the harm that the prison system causes. But she said she plans to attend sentencing, which has not been scheduled.

“I’m very invested at this point,” Elder said.

Elder, who does network engineering and is a musician, said that she would serve on a jury again. She’s remained close with one juror, and they plan to get dinner together Friday, Elder said.

Did her gender identity play a role in the trial? “I wish I had this great angle to give you as a reporter, that my gender identity weighed on this heavily and I saw myself in the victim, but honestly, it didn’t. I followed the evidence and law and followed the judge’s instructions and did what was asked of me and came to that conclusion.”