The Verdict is in For The Man Who Killed His Black Trans Girlfriend

Updated as of 2/26/2024 at 4:00 p.m. ET

After just a few hours of deliberation, jurors found Daqua Lameek Ritter guilty of a federal hate crime in connection to the killing of Dime Doe, a Black trans woman, according to the Department of Justice.

“This case is historic; this defendant is the first to be found guilty by trial verdict for a hate crime motivated by gender identity under the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.

The verdict comes after a four-day trial that was the first of its kind - the nation’s first federal hate crime trial in relation to gender identity. The Department said prosecutors proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Ritter murdered Doe because she was a trans woman - and also because he didn’t want the news of their affair getting out to his peers.

Ritter’s sentencing is yet to be scheduled but he faces a maximum penalty of life in prison.

On Aug. 4, 2019, 24-year-old Dime Doe was found dead in her vehicle with three gunshot wounds to the head on an isolated road in the small town of Allendale, S.C. Police originally found through phone records that Doe was communicating with a man just hours before she was found. That man was identified as Daqua Lameek Ritter, who was later accused of fatally shooting Doe.

The Department of Justice claims he was in a relationship with Doe, which he tried to keep on the low because he didn’t want his peers — and his girlfriend up north — to know he was dating a trans woman.

Doe’s friends testified that they remembered hearing about Ritter in conversation, where they learned he visited South Carolina from New York every summer to see his grandmother, per The Associated Press’ report. Ritter’s girlfriend testified that he lied about his relations with Doe and told her she was his cousin.

Prosecutors argued during this week’s trial that Ritter killed Doe as a result of the exposure of his relationship with her despite the drastic measures he took to keep it quiet.

Read more from The Associated Press:

Still, texts obtained by the FBI suggest that Ritter sought to keep their connection under wraps as much as possible. He would remind Doe to delete their communications from her phone, and the majority of the hundreds of texts sent in the month before her death were removed.

Shortly before Doe’s death, the text messages started getting tense. In a July 29, 2019, message, she complained that Ritter did not reciprocate her generosity toward him. He replied that he thought they had an understanding that she didn’t need the “extra stuff.” He also told her that Green had recently insulted him with a homophobic slur. In a July 31 text, Doe said she felt used and that Ritter should never have let his girlfriend find out about them.

It’s unclear exactly what happened leading up to the day of Doe’s death, but witnesses said they saw Ritter the following day, emptying the contents of a book bag into a man-made fire and appearing to hand off a silver firearm to a friend, the report says. His girlfriend testified that she grew suspicious of him after he came home as he followed the investigation into Doe’s killing.

His attorneys argue that the claims of Ritter trying to rid the evidence of the killing is inconsistent and insisted the two had a genuine relationship based on the non-threatening messages the two exchanged, per CBS News. The defense also said there’s no evidence that would suggest he was the shooter.

Ritter faces hate crime charges for the murder of a transgender woman because of Doe’s gender identity, using a firearm in connection with a hate crime and obstruction of justice for misleading investigators, per CBS.