Convicted killer Daqua Lameek Ritter was sentenced to life in prison following a guilty verdict in the death of Pebbles LaDime “Dime” Doe, a 24-year-old Black transgender South Carolina woman who Ritter was in a relationship with.
Ritter is the first individual to be tried and convicted for a hate crime motivated by gender identity under the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009.
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Daqua Lameek Ritter found guilty on all charges in slaying of transgender woman
He faces life in prison for the hate crime.
In 2019, Ritter’s relationship with Doe was discovered by his girlfriend, which prosecutors said motivated him to take Doe’s life. Prosecutors said Ritter, in a fit of rage fueled by the news their relationship spreading among friends, lured Doe to an isolated location and shot her three times in the head.
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Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke with the U.S. Justice Department’s civil rights division described the hate crime verdict as “historic.”
“We want the Black trans community to know that you are seen and heard, that we stand with the LGBTQI+ community and that we will use every tool available to seek justice for victims and their families,” Clarke said in a departmental statement.
“Every day is a struggle,” Doe’s mother, Debra Saab, said at Ritter’s sentencing. “He shouldn’t get to see the light of day.”
A jury found Ritter guilty on all charges in February for what Clarke called the “heinous and tragic murder” of Doe.
“His crime was motivated by his anger at being mocked for having a sexual relationship with a transgender woman,” prosecutors wrote in court documents introduced during trial. Ritter’s girlfriend called him an anti-gay slur, they believe, which made him “extremely upset.”
Prosecutors said Ritter lied to police about his whereabouts at the time of the killing and got people to help him burn his clothes and hide his weapon as he fled South Carolina for New York.
Video of a traffic stop placed Ritter in Doe’s car just hours before she was killed, along with DNA evidence. Several witnesses said Ritter told them that he killed her.
“He was afraid, shooken up” when he confessed to killing Doe, Ritter’s cousin said during the trial. The cousin said that Ritter asked him to keep the murder a secret and was mad that Doe wouldn’t delete a picture of him from her phone.
A friend of Ritter’s, present when he was burning his clothes after the murder, testified Ritter said, “Nobody gonna have to worry about [Doe] anymore.”
According to the Human Rights Campaign, 27 transgender people have been killed so far in 2024 — 48% were Black transgender women, and 63% were killed with a gun.
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