Xavier Pinckney Sentenced for Obstructing Dime Doe Murder Case

metroweekly.com:

found Ritter guilty on hate crime charges, a firearms charge, and obstruction of justice in relation to Doe’s murder, marking the first-ever conviction under the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr.

Hate Crimes Prevention Act for violence directed at a transgender person.At Ritter’s trial, prosecutors argued that he had been involved in a sexual relationship with Doe, and became upset after rumors of their affair began to circulate around their hometown of Allendale, South Carolina.While Doe’s transgender identity was publicly known to many, Ritter sought to keep their relationship covert, demanding that she delete text messages they had exchanged from her phone.After Ritter’s main girlfriend learned of the ongoing relationship between him and Doe, Ritter allegedly became more anxious and desperate to conceal the affair from others.

On August 4, 2019, he then lured Doe to a remote area outside of Allendale and shot her three times in the head with a .22 caliber handgun.Friends, acquaintances, and even family members later told investigators that they saw Ritter empty a book bag — filled with the clothes he had been wearing at the time of Doe’s disappearance — into a fire inside a barrel, and asked another acquaintance to dispose of the handgun.

Still others claimed he had either confessed to, or implied he had a role in, Doe’s murder.Meanwhile, investigators were able to link Ritter to the crime using body camera video from a traffic stop and DNA evidence from the inside of Doe’s car.It was at this point that Ritter became a primary suspect and fled the area, and that Pinckney attempted to mislead investigators regarding Ritter’s role in Doe’s murder.