He lived and died on Columbus streets. ‘I believe a lot of people were afraid of this guy.’

When Darrell Boggans died of multiple gunshot wounds Saturday night along Winston Road in south Columbus, it wasn’t the first time he had been shot this month.

And it was at least the third instance where he had taken a bullet, including once by a Columbus police officer more than a decade ago.

Boggans, 43, had a lengthy criminal past, that included escaping two murder charges without a conviction and aggravated assault charges that dated back to his teenage years in 1993 and three different stints in Georgia prisons.

“He has come in contact with police before,” said Columbus police Maj. J.D. Hawk.

He added that the victim of the city’s latest homicide was also wounded in the Easter morning nightclub shooting that claimed the life of Alec Spencer, 24. Spencer was shot at an after-hours club at 480 Andrews Road just before 4 a.m. He was pronounced dead at Piedmont Medical Center shortly after the shooting.

Daniel Pitts and Boggans were also shot in that incident. Pitts suffered serious injuries and Boggans was taken by private vehicle to the emergency room, where he was treated and released for his injuries.

Night Life is an after-hours, unlicensed club on Andrews Road.

“We believe Boggans was running that club,” Hawk said.

Police have issued arrest warrants charging 24-year-old Damion Marquez “Dae-Dae” Collier with aggravated assault, being a convicted felon with a firearm and using a gun to commit a crime in connection with the shooting of Boggans on Andrews Road April 1. Collier has not been arrested.

When asked if Collier was a suspect or person of interest in Boggans’ homicide, Hawk declined to comment, but reiterated that Boggans was one of the men shot Easter morning and Collier is facing charges in that shooting.

Boggans had been on law enforcement’s radar for a quarter of a century, according to police records, court documents and reports in the Ledger-Enquirer.

In 1993, Boggans was arrested on two counts of aggravated assault. The disposition of those cases is not clear in court records, but the Georgia Department of Corrections records show he served less than a year in prison in 1995 and 1996 on those charges.

Boggans was back in trouble in 1997 and charged with selling cocaine. He was convicted and sentenced to five years, with three years to serve in prison. He served 12 days short of two years on that conviction, according to Department of Corrections records.

In September 2005, Boggans was arrested after a fight with Columbus police officers in which he was shot.

On Sept. 18, 2005, Boggans was seen rapidly walking away from a vehicle as a police patrol car approached his location at the Booker T. Washington Apartments complex at Victory Drive and Veterans Parkway. Police had a murder warrant for Boggans in the homicide of Raymond Coppins on Jan. 5, 2005, at the Boom Boom Room, a popular Cusseta Road nightclub that has since been shuttered by the city.

Officers stopped Boggans and when Officer Dean Spata patted the suspect down, he felt a gun in Boggans’ right front pocket, according to police reports and an article in the Ledger-Enquirer.

Boggans and the officer became involved in a struggle when Boggans attempted to push away. As the two struggled, Boggans tried to take Spata’s gun, according to police. At the same time, 30-year-old Joseph Thomas, the driver of the vehicle Boggans was walking away from, tried to pull Boggans into the car, police reported.

Officer Katrina Williams sprayed Boggans with Mace, but also sprayed Spata. Williams then drew her .45-caliber, semi-automatic pistol and ordered Boggans to stop, according to a Ledger-Enquirer report. When the officer saw someone reach for Spata’s gun, she shot Boggans once in the shoulder blade, police said. Boggans was treated at the hospital and released.

After the arrest and during a subsequent investigation, one of the police department’s cold-case investigators realized Boggans went by the same nickname — “Bruno” — as the suspect in the 2001 Stanley McCray death. McCray was an 18-year-old Kendrick High junior whose body was found at the end of Hunter Road. The investigation revealed robbery was the motive, according to police.

A police lineup was assembled and a witness from the McCray homicide identified Boggans as “Bruno,” police said.

“I believe a lot of people were afraid of this guy,” then-Columbus police Maj. Russell Traino said of Boggans in 2005. “... When he was arrested a lot of people just started coming out of the woodwork.”

Boggans was indicted by a Muscogee County grand jury on murder charges involving the Coppins’ death on April 24, 2007. Less than a year later in February 2008, the district attorney’s office put the case on the dead-docket, which meant the state did not go forward with the prosecution.

In October 2007, a Muscogee County Superior Court jury convicted Boggans of obstructing a police officer and possession of a firearm in connection with the 2005 fight with Columbus police. Judge Bobby Peters gave him the maximum sentenced, 16 years in prison. He served from November 2007 until June 2011, where he was released from the state prison system for the third and final time.

In May 2009, the murder charge related to McCray’s death went away when a grand jury failed to indict Boggans.

In December 2013, Boggans showed up again at the center of a homicide investigation. One of his friends, Arthur “A.J.” Holt Jr., was shot to death during a downtown Columbus fight. Marquis Tirese Shaw was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Shaw testified during a hearing that he and his friends walked to a parking deck after getting kicked out of a Broadway restaurant and bar. When they reached the deck, Shaw’s cousin Marchello Tripp exchanged words with Boggans. The two then started fighting. Boggans was not charged in that shooting.

This story was originally published May 1, 2018 at 2:21 PM with the headline "He lived and died on Columbus streets. ‘I believe a lot of people were afraid of this guy.’."