Tears could be seen in the eyes and on faces of various people in Putnam County Superior Courtroom Tuesday during the second phase of the Ricky Dubose murder trial. The witnesses on the witness stand as well as some of the jurors, the judge and spectators in the gallery shed tears as family members of slain Georgia Department of Corrections officers Sgt. Curtis Billue and Sgt. Chris Monica delivered their impact statements.
“This is the hardest thing I have ever done, sitting here trying to tell you the truth of who my dad really was, all while sitting in the same room with the individual who is the reason we are all even here,” Zoey Monica, Sgt. Monica’s youngest daughter, sobbed to the jurors.
One day earlier, the jury panel of six men and six women from Grady County returned a verdict of guilty against Dubose on all six counts – two counts of malice murder, two counts felony murder, one count escape and one count hijacking a motor vehicle.
Dubose is one of two inmates found guilty of shooting to death Sgts. Billue and Monica. The other inmate, Donnie Rowe, was tried separately in September and also found guilty. The officers, both Baldwin County residents, were murdered on June 13, 2017, while transporting prisoners from Baldwin and Hancock State prisons to Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison in Jackson. The fatal shootings took place on Ga. Route 16 in Putnam County, at which time Dubose and Rowe both escaped the bus and led authorities on a three-day manhunt across state lines before surrendering and being captured in Tennessee.
Dubose’s trial began Wednesday, June 1, with Ocmulgee Judicial Circuit Superior Court Judge Alison T. Burleson presiding. Early on, the District Attorney’s Office had announced it was seeking the death penalty.
Throughout the trial, the prosecution team of District Attorney T. Wright Barksdale III, Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills, Chief Assistant District Attorney Allison Mauldin and Assistant D.A. Blayne May not only presented detailed evidence of the actual murders and escape but presented evidence and testimony showing how thorough and skillful Dubose’s actions were as he carried out each aspect and how he could adapt each moment to fill particular needs as situations arose.
The Capital Defense team – consisting of lead attorney Amber Pittman, and attorneys Nathanial Studelska, Jerry Word and Shayla Galloway – never claimed their client was innocent of the murders but contended he was mentally ill and intellectually disabled when he shot the officers. Their witnesses during the trial included Dubose’s family members, former schoolteachers and doctors.
Closing arguments
During closing arguments, Mauldin defined the laws concerning the case. She told the jurors the judge charged that their job would be to determine the facts and the laws given to determine the verdict. Mauldin provided the legal definitions of malice and felony murder so they could understand each of the criminal charges.
In her closing arguments, Pittman acknowledged that although Dubose was a member of the Ghost Face Gangsters prison gang, he committed the crimes because he was a man suffering from untreated mental illness and intellectual disabilities. She said the trial wasn’t meant to be about emotions, but it was about exposing the truth.
Prior to closing arguments, the state (prosecution team) brought in rebuttal witnesses from the GDOC and Putnam County Sheriff’s Office to prove how crafty and meticulous Dubose was. A prison warden described how, even though Dubose was under special managed supervision, contraband such as drugs and cell phones were still found on him or in his cell each time it was searched.
Five years to the day since the murders, jurors left the courtroom around 5:15 p.m. Monday, June 13, armed with numerous boxes of evidence, and began their deliberations. They returned with the six-count guilty verdict at 7 p.m., which was read by Putnam County Superior Court Clerk Trevor Addison.
The punishment phase began Tuesday morning, June 14. Studelska first told the jurors that, even though they had found Dubose guilty, they could still consider the evidence of mentally ill and intellectually disabled when determine the sentence.
“Just choose life,” he said. Galloway repeated the previously presented statements of Dubose being repeatedly raped as a child.
“Childhood lays the pattern for our lives,” she said. “It’s not an excuse, not justification, not a defense, period, because there is none. But it’s easy to base a person’s life on a single chapter, but that’s not the whole book.”
Victim impact statements
Next was Sgt. Billue’s sister, Denise Billue, who said her brother was the rock of their family.
“His existence brought joy to us,” she said, followed by a description of when she last saw him two days before and of the day of his murder.
“I worried about breaking the news to my father, who is in his 90s,” she said. “And for the first time, I realized I couldn’t call my brother to ask him how to handle it.”
She told how her father died four years after the murder. Her sister, Carol Billue, said their father “left this world without closure for the murder of his son.”
Carol Billue said Curtis Billue was a father, brother, son, and always dedicated to family.
“They took away my advisor, his work ethic, his leadership skills,” she said between sobs. “They changed my life forever. We have a void in our hearts that we have to live with every day because Curtis was murdered.”
Ashley Monica, the oldest daughter of Chris Monica, emphasized that her father, like his murderer, also did not have a good childhood.
“But he never let his childhood determine his life as an adult,” she said. “He said you have to strive to do better, and he always did that.”
Chris Monica did not come into her life until she was 13 years old and he married her mother, she said.
“But not once did he consider me anything but his,” she said of her stepfather. “He chose to love me.”
She described how Chris Monica was her, her sister’s, and her children’s biggest cheerleader and supporter.
“He stepped in above and beyond to be a Pop-Pop to my kids,” she said.
Describing the day of his murder, she talked about the first report on the news was that two work detail officers had been killed.
“I posted on Facebook to pray for those families because that hit close to home for us,” she said. Her sobs grew louder as she continued, “I tried calling my dad. We had a system where if he was busy he’d say he loved us and would call back later. But I couldn’t get him. … When I learned my dad and his partner were the ones who were killed, I lost hope and love that day. My mom lost her happily ever after. My sister lost her dad. My kids lost their Pop-Pop. We lost love and laughter in our house.”
Ashley said in the days since then, when people learn about her father’s death, they tell her “he’s in a better place.”
“No,” she said. “That is what you say when people who were sick and suffering die. No, these men were both healthy, they worked an honest day’s job, and they should’ve come home.”
Zoey Monica, Chris’s youngest daughter, said her parents had just given her a Sweet 16 birthday party the Saturday before the murders. She talked about their family traditions, how her dad always made breakfast for them on Saturdays, how he was always at her dance recitals, always by her side no matter what, encouraging her.
“I quit dancing because my dad wasn’t on the front row anymore watching me,” she said, her voice broken by sobs. She went on to describe how he danced with her at the bi-annual Father-Daughter Dance, “even though he sucked at dancing and would always step on my toes,” she said.
Her father knew Zoey dreamed of being a softball player, but her health prevented that from happening.
“But that didn’t stop him from playing softball with me in the yard,” she said. “My dad was a good man who never deserved what he got. He was a giant teddy bear who always gave the best hugs.”
The punishment/ sentencing phase continued Tuesday after the newspaper’s press time. See updates online and in next week’s edition.