Daqua Lameek Ritter is scheduled to be sentenced in Columbia on Thursday after being convicted on many counts in February in the first federal gender-based hate crime trial, according to a news statement from the US Department of Justice.
Ritter was convicted of a hate crime, a federal firearms count, and one obstruction of justice count in February 2024, all stemming from the 2019 murder of Dime Doe, a transgender woman.
According to witness evidence and text messages collected by the FBI, Ritter and Doe were in a covert relationship, which Ritter’s friends and girlfriend were supposedly aware of. According to authorities, Ritter then shot Doe three times in the head with a.22 caliber revolver in a rural South Carolina county to keep more people from finding out about their relationship. He then allegedly burned the clothes he was wearing when he committed the murder, asked someone to dispose of the pistol he used, and fled South Carolina for New York, where he is from. Eventually, authorities apprehended him in east New York.
“His crime was motivated by his anger at being mocked for having a sexual relationship with a transgender woman,” government lawyers stated in a January 2022 filing.
The Matthew J. Perry Federal Courthouse in Columbia will host Ritter’s sentencing at 2:30 p.m. on Thursday. He could face a maximum term of life in prison. The DOJ reports that US District Judge Sherri Lydon presided over Ritter’s trial and will impose the sentence.
Xavier Pinckney, Ritter’s buddy from Allendale, pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice in October 2023 after it came to light that he had warned Ritter to stay away from Allendale. Pinckney told Ritter that state police had contacted him and that someone was “snitching.”
According to data from the FBI and Human Rights Campaign, anti-trans sentiment and anti-LGBTQ+ attacks based on gender identity and sexual orientation increased in 2023, despite a 0.6% decrease in the number of hate crimes reported compared to 2022 and a countrywide fall in crime rate.
“Acts of violence against LGBTQI+ people, including transgender women of color like Dime Doe, are on the rise and have no place in our society,” stated Acting Associate Attorney General Benjamin C. Mizer in a February DOJ statement following Ritter’s conviction. “The Justice Department takes all bias-motivated acts of violence seriously and will not hesitate to hold perpetrators accountable. Nobody should have to live in dread of lethal violence because of who they are.”
