A New Yorker gunned down his transgender lover “to silence her” from blabbing about their affair — after his girlfriend already found out about it, his pioneering murder trial was told.
Daqua Lameek Ritter, 26, is facing the first federal trial over a hate crime based on gender identity for allegedly shooting Pebbles LaDime Doe three times on Aug. 4, 2019, in the rural South Carolina town where he spent summers with relatives.
Rumors of the affair were swirling among the 8,000 people who lived in Allendale — and had already reached Ritter’s live-in girlfriend, Delasia Green, back home in Brooklyn, the trial was told.
Ritter initially tried to lie, saying Doe was his cousin — but his girlfriend found messages on his phone from an unsaved number that spoke of “getting a room,” she testified, assuming they were from Doe.
She allegedly started hurling homophobic slurs at Ritter, making him “extremely upset,” prosecutors argued in court, according to the Telegraph.
He then became “enraged” when he learned that Doe had told one of her friends about their relationship, claimed Ben Garner, an assistant US attorney for the district of South Carolina.
Ritter then allegedly lured her into driving around the quiet neighborhood in Allendale County, with his distinctive left wrist tattoo caught on body camera footage when Doe was pulled over by police and given a $72 ticket on the day she was killed.
Two and a half hours later, Doe’s body was found slumped over in the driver’s side of the car — parked in a driveway off a secluded road close to where Ritter’s uncle lived.
Ritter had gone to that house the same night and was acting strangely before asking for a ride, his uncle’s ex-girlfriend, Kiera Mallory, testified.
Other friends said he seemed “on edge” following Doe’s murder — with one even claiming he saw the suspect empty a book bag into a fire that night and asked him to dispose of a gun.
“Nobody gonna have to worry about [Doe] anymore,” Ritter said, according to another friend at the alleged burning.
As rumors of their affair spread, Ritter also told Doe to delete any text messages, the trial heard of messages retrieved by FBI analysts.
Doe’s cousin Yanna Albany said she’d also pursued Ritter, only cutting it off when the transgender woman told her she was seeing him.
Ritter turned red and threatened to beat Doe for “lying on him” when Albany broke up with him, the cousin said.
Green said Ritter was dirty, smelly and couldn’t stop pacing in the days after the murder — and when she asked him point-blank if he had killed Doe, “He dropped his head and gave me a little smirk.”
One of Ritter’s cousins, Jamie Prester, claimed the suspect confessed to the murder when in a car with her son, saying he did it because she refused to delete a photo from her phone.
Ritter is charged with a “hate crime for the murder of a transgender woman because of her gender identity,” using a firearm in connection with the hate crime and obstructing justice.
His attorneys have argued that his sexuality and relationship with Doe are not on trial, arguing the jury should only determine whether or not he killed her.
They have also sought to discredit many of the witnesses and former friends who have spoken, claiming their alleged marijuana use altered their memories and arguing that Ritter would not have asked someone he barely knew to dispose of a murder weapon, according to WISTV.
With Post wires.