Timothy Paul Dunigan
Trinity Wayne Bussler
DA seeking death penalty against 2 state inmates
By Billy Hobbs
Union-Recorder
Ocmulgee Judicial Circuit District Attorney T. Wright Barksdale III has filed formal notice that he will seek the death penalty against a pair of inmates charged in the June 2019 murder of an inmate at Baldwin State Prison near Milledgeville.
The victim was strangled, stabbed and then set afire while in his cell, authorities say.
Barksdale filed notice of the state’s intention to seek capital punishment against Timothy Paul Dunigan and Trinity Wayne Bussler shortly before noon Friday, The Union-Recorder has learned.
The two men, who were transferred to another prison in Georgia after the killing of 26-year-old David Michael Watson, recently were each indicted by a Baldwin County grand jury on multiple felony criminal charges, according to records filed in the Baldwin County Superior Court Clerk’s Office.
A copy of the district attorney’s intention to seek the death penalty was also forwarded to Ocmulgee Judicial Circuit Superior Court Chief Judge Brenda H. Trammell. A copy was also sent to Ocmulgee Judicial Circuit Chief Public
Defender John Bradley, as well as to the Georgia Capital Defender’s Office.
Watson, who was serving a 25-year sentence following his conviction on a charge of aggravated sexual battery in Cowetta County Superior Court in Newnan, was in his prison cell at the time of the murder.
The Union-Recorder viewed copies of the warrants taken against Dunigan and Bussle after Watson was killed. The warrants were taken out by Georgia Department of Corrections Special Agent Nathan Adkerson.
According to the affidavit, Watson was choked and then stabbed about the face, neck and lower back multiple times, causing his death.
Watson’s bunk was then set afire, Adkerson said.
Authorities have never publicly revealed what the motive might have been for the killing.
Immediately after the two inmates were arrested and charged with murder, they were taken to the Baldwin County Law Enforcement Center where they were booked and processed. They were both then taken to the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison near Jackson.
Dunigan was serving a 20-year prison sentence after a conviction of armed robbery in Bulloch County Superior Court in Statesboro in 2017.
Bussler, meanwhile, has an extensive criminal record, including convictions on charges of burglary, false imprisonment, criminal trespass, and theft by taking — all of which happened in the Conyers area of Rockdale County.
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