Summary of Offense:
On November 15, 1994, at approximately 9:45 p.m., Jason Oberling was murdered in the parking lot of a drive-in restaurant. Before the shooting, a black male wearing a multi-colored, striped polo shirt. The next morning, two persons in the area of the chase found a wallet that contained a driver’s license, credit cards, and papers bearing the victim’s name and address.
Davis was arrested three months later on a charge of first-degree murder. The grand jury indicted him as an accessory after the fact of the first-degree murder. He drove a 1983 blue Cadillac into the parking lot and got out of the car to use the pay telephone. Oberling arrived in his van and made a purchase at the walk-up window. As Oberling was returning to his van, several restaurant employees saw a masked man (who was not the person that had earlier used the telephone) approach the victim with a gun and struggle with him, heard four or five shots, and saw the victim fall beside his van. The employees saw the gunman move quickly through the parking lot and enter the passenger side of the blue Cadillac, which drove off immediately. Within four minutes, police located the getaway vehicle and initiated a chase, which culminated when the Cadillac crashed into a parked car.
Officers pursued the passenger, who was carrying a satchel. With the aid of a K-9 dog, the officers apprehended defendant, who was hiding behind a garage fence, and arrested him. A search of his person yielded $30 in bills, mixed with a gasoline charge receipt signed by “J. Oberling.” Retracing the route of the chase, an officer located a satchel containing a revolver and several bullets, and a black ski mask wrapped inside a plastic bag. The police traced the Cadillac’s registration to Bienville Davis, whose fingerprints were found in the car and on the telephone receiver at the restaurant. An autopsy report described the cause of death as three gunshot wounds from bullets fired at very close range.
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