Alleged shooter goes to trial in fatal 2016 Columbus marijuana robbery
The alleged triggerman in a fatal 2016 marijuana robbery is being tried for murder this week in Muscogee Superior Court.
Valintino Dewashington Tucker is accused of shooting Ronald Davis as Tucker and two accomplices tried to rob Davis at his home on 17th Avenue just south of Columbus’ Manchester Expressway.
That was on Nov. 15, 2016, when Tucker’s cohort Dylan Ray Haskell set up the drug deal, and Haskell and Saleem Kareem Jackson went to Davis’ home for the transaction that morning, with Tucker waiting outside in a van, authorities said.
Instead of paying for the marijuana, Jackson drew a pistol on Davis and pulled the trigger, but the gun misfired, prosecutors said. As Davis fought back, Tucker shot through the home’s back door, mortally wounding Davis, who died in the hospital the next day, authorities said.
Jackson and Haskell have pleaded guilty in the case. Here are their pleas and sentences:
- Jackson, 25, pleaded guilty to criminal attempt to commit a felony and in January was sentenced to 25 years with 12 to serve and the rest on probation.
- Haskell, 24, also pleaded to attempting to commit a felony in January and was sentenced to 10 years with four to serve and the rest on probation.
Those pleas left Tucker, 28, the only suspect to go to trial before Superior Court Judge Maureen Gottfried.
The testimony
Among the first witnesses was a friend of Davis’ who described driving Davis around that day, picking up the four ounces of marijuana Davis planned to sell and stopping at a McDonald’s to eat.
The friend said that as he took Davis home, he tried to get Davis to come to the friend’s house, where the friend had a litter of pit bull puppies, one of which Davis planned to adopt. Davis refused, saying he had to be home to meet people from LaGrange, to whom he planned to sell the marijuana, the friend said.
“I’ve got to make this play,” the friend said Davis told him.
The friend went home, but rushed back when he got a call saying something had happened to Davis, he said. When he returned to Davis’ 17th Avenue home, he found Davis on the kitchen floor, wounded.
“He was barely alive,” the friend said. Davis was gasping for breath and unable to speak, he said.
After he died the next day, homicide detectives hearing Davis had been in touch with someone named “Dylan” started checking his cell phone for connections, and found Davis had been communicating with Dylan Haskell, said Lance Deaton, a former detective who since was promoted to deputy chief.
Police found images of Haskell on Facebook, and found they matched someone recorded on surveillance video walking past a coin laundry two doors down from Davis’ home, around the time of the shooting, Deaton said.
Surveillance video also recorded a dark-colored van passing through around that time, its right front fender discolored by primer paint from previous damage, the officer said.
When detectives questioned Haskell at a girlfriend’s Columbus home on Nov. 23, 2016, he gave them information on a second suspect, Saleem Jackson, who lived in LaGrange, Deaton said.
On Dec. 8, 2016, Columbus investigators aided by Troup County authorities went to LaGrange looking for Jackson, finding he shared his mother’s home with the third suspect, Valintino Tucker, his brother, Deaton said. They learned then that Jackson was working at an auto plant in Hogansville, where in the parking lot police located his dark blue Dodge van with a primer coat on the right, front fender, he said.
The van matched the vehicle seen on surveillance video near Davis’ home, Deaton said.
Under the van’s front passenger seat, officers found a Kel Tech 9-millimeter handgun, Deaton said.
Jackson was arrested on Dec. 8, 2016, and Haskell was arrested the next day, according to previous reports. Authorities said Tucker already was jailed in LaGrange on unrelated offenses when police charged him in Davis’ homicide.
Besides murder, Tucker is on trial for armed robbery, aggravated assault, using a gun to commit a crime and being a convicted felon with a firearm. His defense attorney is Angela Dillon. The prosecutor is Kimberly Schwartz.
This story was originally published May 4, 2022 at 3:24 PM.