FBI agent gives details of alleged SC hate crime ending in murder of transgender woman

The alleged killer of a South Carolina Black transgender woman was upset that “rumors” of their relationship were starting to spread around Allendale County where both were known, an FBI agent testified Monday in federal court.

And that caused people to start talking about the defendant, Daqua Ritter, being gay, testified FBI Special Agent Clay Trippi. His testimony was the first time extensive details of the case have been made public.

“The people we spoke with said Ritter was very upset that people thought he was gay,” Trippi said in response to questioning by federal prosecutor Ben Garner.

Ritter, 27, is charged with a hate crime for the 2019 murder of the transgender woman, Dime Doe of Allendale County, because of her gender identity and that a firearm was used in connection with a crime of violence. Each of those crimes carries a potential life sentence. A transgender woman is a person who is born male but then self-identifies as female.

South Carolina is one of just a few states that have no state hate crime law. Consequently the case is being tried in federal court, where laws with stiff potential sentences can be applied. If Ritter were tried in state court, depending on how the case played out, he might get a lighter sentence.

Ritter believed that Doe was telling people, including Ritter’s girlfriend, about their relationship, Trippi testified.

“Mr. Ritter was upset that Ms. Doe was exposing their relationship,” Trippi testified. “There are text messages between the defendant and the victim where the defendant says he is very upset that people in the community think they are having sex.”

Ritter is also charged with two counts of obstruction of justice and misleading state investigators about his whereabouts on the day of the murder, Aug. 4, 2019.

Trippi’s testimony came during a bond hearing before Magistrate Judge Shiva Hodges in the federal courthouse in Columbia.

At the hearing’s end, Hodges denied bond, saying prosecutors had presented a compelling case that Ritter — who lives in New York but is an occasional visitor to South Carolina — was both a flight risk and a danger to others.

The government’s facts are “very, very strong,” Hodges said.

Especially important, Hodges said, is that two of the crimes carry potential life sentences, possibly giving Ritter a motive to flee.

There were no eyewitnesses to the Aug. 4, 2019, killing. Doe was found dead in the front seat of her car on a rural road. She suffered three gunshots to the head, Trippi testified. The gun has never been found.

But Trippi testified that numerous pieces of circumstantial evidence linked Ritter to the crime:

▪ On the day of the killing, Ritter used the cellphone of a friend, Xavier Pinckney, to arrange a meeting with Doe. Last week, Pinckney, 24, pled guilty to obstruction of justice in the case and now is a possible witness against Ritter.

▪ On the afternoon of the killing, Doe was stopped for speeding, and the body camera of the police officer caught the distinctive pants and tattoos of someone else in the car with her. One witness later identified the pants, which had numerous zippers, as belonging to Ritter. Another witness testified the man in the car had the same tattoos as Ritter.

▪ The death scene was just a mile from a house belonging to Ritter’s uncle, Calvin Peeples. Ritter unexpectedly turned up at Peeples’ house that afternoon and asked for a ride into town.

▪ That afternoon, Ritter burned some clothes in a fire pit, his friends told investigators.

▪ Two people can testify that Ritter told them he killed Doe.

▪ Ritter’s girlfriend began to question him about “whether he was something other than a heterosexual,” Trippi testified.

▪ Under questioning by agents about his whereabouts on the day of the crime, Ritter changed his story.

▪ Within a day or two after the shooting, Ritter left the state and went to New York, returning only once for a family funeral for a day.

▪ Ritter also deleted numerous text messages between him and Doe.

Under cross examination by Ritter defense attorney Josh Kendrick, Trippi admitted that no evidence linking the defendant to the crime was found in the pit where he was supposed to have burned clothes.

Trippi also admitted that although DNA was found on three bullet casings located in the car where Doe was shot, the DNA did not belong to Ritter.

Although Ritter left South Carolina right after the killing, no one told him not to leave, Kendrick argued. “He just went home (to New York), where he lives,” Kendrick said.

Kendrick argued to Magistrate Judge Hodges that Ritter had no criminal history and should be allowed a chance to make a “reasonable bond.”

“There is no evidence that the relationship had gotten to such a boiling point that it resulted in a killing,” Kendrick said.

Ritter is also represented by Lindsey Vann, who was in the courtroom with Kendrick.

Besides Garner, government prosecutors include Assistant U.S. Attorneys Elle Klein, Brook Andrews and Andrew Manns of the U.S. Department of Justice’s civil rights division.

The case is being jointly handled by the FBI and the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division.

Allendale County is a small (population 8,000) rural county bordering on Georgia and other small counties in the southern part of the state.

Ritter is slated to go on trial Feb. 12. Federal Judge Sherri Lydon will preside.