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Thread: De'Marquis Elkins Sentenced in 2013 GA Slaying of 13-month-old Antonio West

  1. #41
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    Defense motion for mistrial denied in De'Marquise Elkins trial

    The murder trial of a Brunswick teenager entered the first full day of testimony Wednesday, and was marked by dramatic testimony and legal maneuvering.

    At about 2:30 p.m., the defense in the Elkins trial asked for a mistrial, apparently over concerns about facial expressions being made by prosecutors.

    Following the motion, Superior Court Judge Stephen Kelley held a sidebar discussion with lawyers from both sides at the bench. At the conclusion of that discussion, the judge sternly warned key players to refrain from making facial expressions that could be seen by jurors.

    "Mr. Gough, motion for mistrial is denied. I do instruct all counsel to refrain from any audible comments, facial gestures or anything that could disrupt the re-examination of a witness. Mr. Gough, you may process. Thank you your honor," said Judge Kelley.

    The testimony continues in the case with the state presenting.

    De'Marquise Elkins is charged with shooting and killing 13-month-old Antonio Santiago in his stroller.

    http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/g...n-Elkins-trial

    Police called to testify in Ga. baby slaying trial

    A Brunswick police detective spent about three hours testifying in the trial of a man accused of fatally shooting a baby as he sat in his stroller.

    WGCL-TV (http://bit.ly/16wGU7r ) reported that Det. Angela Smith was cross examined Wednesday by public defender Kevin Gough in the trial of 18-year-old De'Marquise (deh-mahr-KEES') Elkins. Gough questioned Smith on the collection of evidence near the crime scene.

    Elkins and 15-year-old Dominique Lang were arrested in the late-March death of 13-month-old Antonio Santiago. Authorities have said the two targeted the boy's mother, Sherry West, during in an attempted armed robbery in which West was also wounded.

    Police have said Elkins shot Santiago after West told him she didn't have any money. Lang, his accused accomplice, was also called for cross examination after a lunch recess.

    http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/cri...al-4750141.php
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  2. #42
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    18-year-old fatally shot baby in stroller, his younger companion tells Georgia court

    The jury hearing evidence in the fatal shooting of a toddler in a stroller in Brunswick will hear the testimony of the 15-year-old boy who authorities said was with the accused shooter, the trial judge ruled.

    The jury was outside the courtroom as Dominique Lang, 15, said he had been with murder defendant De’Marquise Elkins, 18, when he tried first to rob Sherry West and then shot her baby, Antonio Santiago in the head. Lang testified as Superior Court Judge Stephen Kelley conducted a hearing on a defense motion to disallow Lang’s identification of Elkins.

    Kelley ruled the jury can be told that Lang, while being interrogated by police, identified Elkins as the shooter.

    Lang wore a prison jumpsuit and shackles as he slowly entered the courtroom in Cobb County Superior Court where the trial was moved because of pre-trial news coverage. Elkins didn’t move or look up as the younger boy walked past.

    Lang appeared nervous and disoriented as he climbed to the witness stand.

    Most of his answers were one or two words until he described the events of March 21. He said he and Elkins had been acquainted some time before that day but not close friends when they met up less than an hour before the shooting.

    Lang said he was walking down Ellis Street toward his great grandmother’s home, and Elkins was walking the same way when they came upon a woman, Sherry West, pushing Antonio in a stroller.

    “He asked her for her purse,” Lang said. “... He kept asking for her purse. She kept refusing.”

    Elkins then pulled a gun from his pocket and struck West with it and then threatened the baby with the gun, Lang told the court. The two then struggled around the stroller, Lang said, then Elkins shot the baby and then fired twice more, he said.

    Testimony Tuesday showed that West was struck once in the leg and once on her left ear. The baby died instantly from a single pistol round between his eyebrows, a medical examiner testified.

    The boys fled to Lang’s great-grandmother’s house where Elkins made phone calls seeking a ride.

    Elkins’ attorney Jonathan Lockwood hurled repeated questions at Lang to try to demonstrate inconsistencies between what he had told police and his testimony Wednesday. Land admitted he didn’t like Lockwood and that he was giving terse replies because he was eager to get off the witness stand and return home, or at least back to the Youth Development Center in Savannah where he is in custody.

    At one point, even the judge said he was confused by the questions.

    Lang will be tried separately for murder, but Wednesday he tried to make clear his involvement was limited.

    “I didn’t shoot no baby,” he said.

    Kelley ruled that the jury could weigh Lang’s credibility but that the photo identification was allowable.

    “His opportunity to observe was quite extensive,” the judge said, adding a recap of Lang’s rundown of the events. “It reduces the likelihood that there would be any misidentification.”

    The testimony before the jury Wednesday morning was limited to cross-examination of Brunswick Police detective Angela Smith.

    Defense attorney Kevin Gough got her to acknowledge that West was not investigated as a suspect even though an older child had died earlier in New Jersey, that she suffers from multiple mental disorders and that her poverty gave her a motive for murdering her child for a life-insurance payout.

    According to news accounts, West’s older son was killed in New Jersey when he attacked someone else with a knife. In the struggle, West’s son was killed with his own knife and his intended victim was never charged.

    West’s behavior after the shooting should have raised the suspicions of investigators, Gough said. But the detective replied that under the circumstances, the behavior wasn’t odd.

    “She had just observed her baby shot in her presence and she was shot herself,” Smith said.

    A big clue to West’s precarious mental state should have been when she wet herself before being questioned at police headquarters, Gough said. Smith replied that had never happened before in her experience, so she had no reason to consider it a sign of possible guilt.

    http://jacksonville.com/news/crime/2...anion-tells-ga

  3. #43
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    Teen says he heard shot that killed baby

    The 15-year-old co-defendant of a man accused of fatally shooting a baby in a stroller during a robbery attempt in coastal Georgia said the 18-year-old counted down twice before firing the shot that killed the baby.

    Dominique Lang testified Thursday he was walking with Elkins March 21 when they saw Sherry West with a stroller.

    Lang says Elkins demanded West's purse. Lang says Elkins pulled out a gun when West refused, hit her in the face with it and threatened her baby.

    Lang says Elkins fired at the ground and then shot West in the leg. Lang said he saw Elkins point the gun at the baby and heard a third shot.

    The trial is being held in suburban Atlanta because of publicity in the case.

    http://bigstory.ap.org/article/teen-...-old-shot-baby

  4. #44
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    De'Marquise Elkins taunted police over lack of evidence in toddler's death, investigator says

    Elkins' demeanor changed when he perceived police had found the gun used to kill 13-month-old Antonio Santiago, detective testified

    A Brunswick teen accused of shooting a toddler to death on a city street taunted police over their lack of evidence, but his demeanor changed when he perceived they had located a gun, a Glynn County investigator testified Friday in his trial.

    De’Marquise “Marky” Elkins is being tried for murder in the March 21 killing of 13-month-old Antonio Santiago during the botched robbery of his mother, Sherry West, who was shot in the leg. The trial is in Cobb County Superior Court because of the heavy news coverage in Glynn County.

    Roderic Nohilly told the jury how Elkins claimed in a pre-arrest interrogation that he had nothing to do with the crime and was instead sleeping alone at his aunt’s home at the time Antonio was killed. The interrogation ended when Elkins said he wanted to call a lawyer.

    Officers got an arrest warrant and, as they were handcuffing Elkins, he made what Nohilly described as a “spontaneous utterance.”

    “He said, as he was walking out, ‘Y’all ain’t got — — on me. Y’all ain’t got no gun. Y’all ain’t got no fingerprints. All y’all got is a — — acquittal,’ ’’ Nohilly testified. When Elkins saw another detective smile he said, “Oh, got the gun?”

    Before the jury entered the courtroom, Elkins’ lawyers argued Nohilly shouldn’t be allowed to repeat Elkins’ statements because he was under arrest and had said he wanted a lawyer. Glynn County Superior Court Judge Stephen Kelley already had ruled in a pretrial motions hearing earlier in the month that the statement was allowable. He stuck with that ruling Friday.

    Before court recessed for lunch, Elkins’ defense lawyers asked for a mistrial when Wrix McIlvaine, who is representing Elkins’ mother Karimah, asked investigator Stephanie Oliver why she had been looking for Elkins at his mother’s home. Karimah Elkins, 36, is on trial for lying to police and evidence tampering.

    In posing the question, McIlvaine asked Oliver about Karimah Elkins having lost custody of her son after suffering a stroke.

    McIlvaine asked Oliver if the loss of custody was in “a juvenile report or something.”

    The reference to a juvenile report damaged De’Marquise Elkins’ character before the jury, the defense argued.

    Kelley denied the motion and instructed the jurors to disregard the question and remember that only witness testimony is evidence.

    Sarah Peppers, a gunshot-residue analyst with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s Atlanta crime lab, testified she found evidence of gunshot residue on swabs made of the hands of West and Antonio’s father, Louis Santiago.

    De’Marquise Elkins’ lead attorney, Kevin Gough, repeatedly objected when District Attorney Jackie Johnson tried to ask Peppers about the possibility that Santiago could have gotten the residue on his hands by caressing West in the emergency room.

    Ironically, Gough laid out the theory of West’s residue rubbing off on Santiago when he had Peppers read a GBI memo about it.

    Peppers testified her analysis could not determine concretely whether the residue on the swabs was from their having fired a gun or having rubbed against something. She did say the appearance of few particles on Santiago suggests that he had not shot a gun recently.

    Other witnesses were police officers describing their roles in the investigation which involved nearly every detective in the Brunswick and Glynn County departments.

    Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/news/georgia...#ixzz2ctf7191B
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  5. #45
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    Father of baby shot in coastal Ga. takes stand in trial of man accused of pulling trigger

    The father of a baby who was fatally shot in his stroller in coastal Georgia took the stand Thursday in the trial of the man accused of pulling the trigger.

    A defense attorney for De'Marquise (deh-mahr-KEES') Elkins called Louis Santiago to the stand. Elkins is charged with murder in the March 21 killing of 13-month-old Antonio Santiago in Brunswick.

    Prosecutors say Elkins shot Antonio during an attempted robbery. The boy's mother, Sherry West, was shot in the leg.

    The trial is being held near Atlanta because of pretrial publicity.

    If convicted of murder, 18-year-old Elkins faces up to life in prison. His mother is on trial alongside him on charges of evidence tampering and lying to police.

    http://www.therepublic.com/view/stor...Stroller-Slain
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  6. #46
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    Defending DeMarquise Elkins

    All the witnesses have been called. All the testimony has been heard. And soon, a jury will decide whether DeMarquise Elkins is the one who shot a Brunswick baby between the eyes.

    The teenager's defense team wrapped up its case late Thursday. But not before grilling the victim's father, Louis Santiago, about where he was and what he was doing the March morning his son, Antonio, was killed.

    Public Defender Kevin Gough said, "So you were across the street from the shooting when the shooting took place, by your own testimony."

    Santiago said, "No, the shooting didn't happen there."

    It was the final attempt by the defense to implicate Santiago in his son's murder. It was a final attempt to take the focus away from Elkins.

    The defense attorneys did everything they could to implicate the parents in the crime, even playing on the mother's mental illness, saying it made her an unreliable witness. They said Sherry West's illness made her unable to say for sure Elkins was the one who tried to rob her, the one who shot her baby right in front of her.

    West cried, "We loved that little boy, a bunch."

    Now, a jury will decide if the defense created the reasonable doubt it needs to keep Elkins out of jail for the rest of his life.

    Closing arguments begin Friday morning.

    DeMarquise Elkins and his mother, Karimah Elkins, are being tried together. She's accused of hiding the suspected murder weapon. Both decided not to testify.

    http://www.actionnewsjax.com/content...SgWmf3E6Q.cspx
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  7. #47
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    Jury weighs baby-shooting case

    A jury is now deciding whether a Brunswick man is guilty of shooting a sleeping baby in its stroller during a robbery.

    Attorneys completed their closing arguments at noon, and Glynn County Superior Court Judge Stephen Kelley read them a lengthy set of instructions about the law.

    The two-week trial of De’Marquise “Marky” Elkins, age 18, was moved from Glynn County to Cobb County because of the amount of news coverage in this case that has drawn international attention.

    Defense attorney Jonathan Lockwood said Brunswick police got the wrong guy based on the misidentification of the upset mother, Sherry West, and biased witnesses, and then detectives refused to consider any other suspects. Instead, they made their evidence fit the case they wanted, he said.

    “They already had their guy. They were only going to look at that,” he said. “They were only going to look at that. They were going to pretty it up.”

    Lockwood argued that Elkins’ co-defendant Dominique Lang, 15, was the actual shooter and that he implicated Elkins to protect his cousin and best friend, Joe Lang, who was also supposedly involved.

    Both Langs testified against Elkins. Dominique Lang is also charged with murder and will be tried later.

    Lockwood reminded jurors of how many witnesses had admitted to lying about various details, including both Langs.

    District Attorney Jackie Johnson responded by holding up still images from various security video cameras that she said substantiate those witnesses.

    “The video can’t conspire with those making up stories,” she said. “... All these ‘liars’ are telling you what happened in the case, but what they’re telling you matches up with the videotape.”

    Elkins is additionally charged with an earlier robbery attempt that also resulted in a shooting, but that victim, Rev. Wilfredo Calix-Flores, was only wounded. A co-defendant in that case who will be tried later, Dont’e Jackson, 17, testified against, Elkins, too.

    If convicted of the murder, Elkins faces life in prison. Because he was 17 at the time of the crime, he cannot be given the death penalty. His mother, Kamirah Elkins, is also being tried with him for evidence tampering and giving a false alibi.

    Johnson accused De’Maquise Elkins of preying on the weak. He decided to rob Calix-Flores because he believed Hispanics were less likely to put up a fight or report the crime, she said, and he attempted to rob West because a mother with a baby is also vulnerable.

    “I don’t know anyone more weak than a sleeping baby,” Johnson said.

    http://onlineathens.com/breaking-new...-shooting-case
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  8. #48
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    Jury convicts teen of shooting baby in stroller



    After deliberating for almost two hours, a Georgia jury found 18-year-old De'Marquise Elkins guilty Friday of multiple charges, including felony murder, in the fatal shooting of 13-month-old boy during a robbery.

    Elkins also was convicted of aggravated assault and other charges for shooting pastor Wilfredo Calix-Flores during a mugging 10 days before the baby, Antonio Santiago, was shot in the coastal city of Brunswick.

    His mother, Karimah Elkins, was convicted of tampering with evidence for her alleged role in trying to cover up the March shooting.

    Read more: http://www.wyff4.com/news/national/j...#ixzz2dUFhYsAN
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  9. #49
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    Teen Guilty of Murdering Georgia Baby in Stroller

    An 18-year-old man was convicted of murder in the shooting of a baby who was riding in a stroller alongside his mom in a town in coastal Georgia despite the defense's attempt to cast guilt upon several others, including the child's parents.

    Jurors deliberated about two hours before finding De'Marquise Elkins guilty of 11 counts, including two counts of felony murder and one count of malice murder in the March 21 killing of 13-month-old Antonio Santiago in Brunswick. The man's mother, Karimah Elkins, was on trial alongside him and was found guilty of tampering with evidence but acquitted of lying to police.

    De'Marquise Elkins faces life in prison when he is sentenced at a later date. At the time of the shooting he was 17, too young to face the death penalty under Georgia law.

    His lead defense attorney, public defender Kevin Gough, vowed to appeal the verdict. A judge denied his request for the teen to be out on bond during the appeal.

    "Marky Elkins and his family are confident that he will receive another trial in which he will be able to present fully his defense," Gough said. "Mr. Elkins will eventually be exonerated."

    Karimah Elkins' attorney, Wrix McIlvaine, said he would talk to his client and that they would likely appeal.

    Sherry West testified that she was walking home from the post office with her son the morning of the killing. A gunman demanding her purse, shot her in the leg and shot her baby in the face after she told him she had no money, she said.

    Prosecutors, who declined comment after the verdict, said during two-week trial that De'Marquise Elkins and an accomplice, 15-year-old Dominique Lang, are the ones who stopped West. Prosecutors say the older teen pointed a small .22-caliber revolver at West and demanded money. When West refused several times to turn over the money, Elkins fired a warning shot, shot the woman in the leg and the baby between the eyes, prosecutors said.

    The killing in the port city of Brunswick drew national attention, and the trial was moved to the Atlanta suburb of Marietta owing to extensive publicity locally.

    Prosecutors have said information from Elkins' mother and sister led investigators to a pond where they found the revolver. Elkins' sister also was charged with evidence tampering.

    Lang, who was a key prosecution witness in Elkins' trial, is set to go to trial at a later date.

    West told The Associated Press that she didn't want to say too much following the verdict because there are still other trials pending in the case and she will be a witness and she will testify at Elkins' sentencing.

    "I knew why I was there and I knew that I didn't have my baby anymore," she said. "In the beginning I was in shock. Now things are kind of really setting in. But I'm hanging in there."

    West spent hours on the stand during the trial and was grilled by the defense on her personal and medical history.

    "I was a little nervous up on the stand and just being asked so many personal questions by the defense attorney," she said in a telephone interview. "It was embarrassing."

    The defense tried throughout the trial to prove that the investigation was flawed and that police refused to consider other leads or investigate further once they had Elkins in custody the day after the killing

    "They finished their case in 25 hours. Everything else they did after that they just sugarcoated," Lockwood said.

    The prosecution's witnesses — many with criminal histories and some drug users — lied repeatedly and changed their stories throughout the investigation, Lockwood said. The defense also said several law enforcement agents backtracked in their testimony to make sure what they were saying fit the state's version of the story.

    West made different identifications of the suspect and behaved strangely after the shooting, occasionally joking and laughing while being questioned by police and making other bizarre statements, Lockwood said. The baby's father, Louis Santiago, was in the vicinity when the shooting happened and showed no warmth toward the child's mother afterward, Lockwood said.

    Lang testified that Elkins is the one who asked West for money and fired the shots, but admitted lying repeatedly, Lockwood said. And Lang's cousin, Joe Lang, was in the area on the day of the shooting and fits the description of the shooter.

    But police never really investigated the baby's parents or the Lang cousins, Lockwood said.

    The defense had strongly suggested in pretrial motions that the baby's parents were the killers. Gough made several suggestions to the same effect during the trial. But much of his questioning that seemed to be heading in that direction — including attempts to bring up details about the backgrounds of both of the baby's parents — was blocked by the judge after the prosecution objected.

    Prosecutors said the defense presented a lot of theories and speculation but that the evidence and facts in the case proved Elkins' guilt.

    Brunswick Judicial Circuit District Attorney Jackie Johnson showed jurors a string of still images pulled from video cameras around Brunswick during her closing argument. They all showed Elkins in specific locations at specific times the day of the shooting.

    Johnson also reminded jurors of the testimony of two young women — one who said Elkins walked her to school at 8:45 the day of the shooting and another who said she spent the night before with Elkins and ate with him later that morning, which was backed up by video stills of them at a convenience store.

    The only person whose story didn't match the evidence in the case was Elkins, Johnson said.

    Johnson also rejected the accusation that police stopped investigating once they arrested Elkins, noting that they pulled video from various cameras around town and went diving in a pond to recover the gun the following week.

    Johnson also slammed the defense for picking on West and her behavior following the shooting: "Does anyone know what the protocol is for how you're supposed to act when you've just watched your child get shot in the face?"

    http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...STROLLER_SLAIN

  10. #50
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    Teen convicted of shooting baby in face gets life sentence

    A teenager convicted of fatally shooting a baby in the face while trying to rob the child's mother in coastal Georgia has been sentenced to life in prison without parole.

    A judge sentenced 18-year-old De'Marquise Elkins on Thursday, less than two weeks after a jury found him guilty of murder in the death of 13-month-old Antonio Santiago.

    The boy was in his stroller and out for a walk with his mother when he was shot between the eyes March 21. The boy's mother and a younger teenager charged as an accomplice testified Elkins killed the child after his mother refused to give up her purse.

    The death penalty wasn't an option for Elkins because he was 17 at the time of the killing.

    http://www.news10.net/news/national/...-life-sentence
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