COLUMBIA, S.C. — A federal judge has sentenced a man to life in prison for killing a transgender woman in South Carolina in what prosecutors say was a hate crime
Judge Sherri Lydon handed down the punishment against Daqua Ritter Thursday afternoon at the federal courthouse in downtown Columbia. It was the first-ever federal trial over a bias-motivated crime involving a transgender victim. Lyndon said she hoped she would send a message that crimes motivated by hate would not be tolerated.
"This case is the first of it's kind to go to trial in this country a murder of a transgender woman because of her identity," said U.S. Attorney for South Carolina Adair Ford Boroughs. "She was a brave woman, she lived and loved as herself and no one deserves to lose their life because of that."
Ritter killed Dime Doe On August 4, 2019 in Allendale County. Prosecutors proved the defendant lured Doe to a remote area in there and shot her three times in the head.
In February of 2024, Ritter was convicted following a four-day trial. The jury quickly returned a guilty verdict.
At trial, the government proved Ritter murdered Doe because of her gender identity. To prove the hate crime element during the trial, the Department of Justice relied heavily on arguments that Ritter feared he'd be ridiculed if his relationship with Doe became public knowledge in the rural South Carolina community where he lived.
Hundreds of text messages between the pair, later obtained by the FBI, proved key to the conviction, according to a juror who later spoke with the Associated Press. In many of them, Ritter repeatedly reminded Doe to delete their communications from her phone. The majority of the texts sent in the month before the killing were deleted, according to one FBI official’s testimony. Ritter often communicated through an app called TextNow, which provides users with a phone number that is different from their cellphone number, officials testified.
In a July 29, 2019, message, Doe complained that Ritter never reciprocated the generosity she showed him through such favors as driving him around town. Ritter replied that he thought they had an understanding that she didn't need the “extra stuff.”
In another text, Ritter — who visited Allendale from New York in the summers — complained that his main girlfriend at the time, Delasia Green, had insulted him with a homophobic slur after learning of his affair with Doe. At trial, Green testified that Ritter told her not to question his sexuality when she confronted him. Doe told Ritter in a message on July 31 that she felt used and that he never should have let Green find out about them.
During the trial, prosecution played multiple recordings in which the FBI asked questions about Ritter's interactions with Doe on the day of the murder. The special agent testified Ritter's story changed several times regarding the last time he saw Doe.