Suspect admitted Phenix City Riverwalk double homicide, detective testifies
The suspect accused of gunning down two strangers Dec. 3 on the Phenix City Riverwalk admitted he shot them, a detective testified Tuesday.
While confessing to the shooting during police questioning after his arrest, Damon Daniels Jr. gave no clear reason for killing Darrelyn “Darren” Harris and John Arthur Burkus, Phenix City Police Investigator Edwin Reece said. The detective gave his testimony during a preliminary hearing that took almost two hours in Russell County District Court.
After police arrested Daniels on Dec. 9, the suspect initially denied being in Phenix City the day of the shooting, then implied he was a witness who saw someone else shoot Harris, Reece said. When shown a photo of Burkus’ body, Daniels said , “If he was alive, he’d be able to tell us everything,” Reece testified.
Authorities have said they suspect Burkus, who frequented the Riverwalk, was killed only to eliminate a witness to Harris’ slaying.
Daniels on Dec. 3 had been at a home on 19th Street off Fourth Avenue in Phenix City, where witnesses said he was acting strangely, Reece testified. “They were trying to soothe him or find out what was wrong with him.”
He later left the house on foot, wearing a teal-colored hooded jacket, and walked a few blocks to a riverwalk entrance at 19th Street and First Avenue, where he was recorded on a neighbor’s security camera, Reece said.
He said Daniels told police he had used methamphetamine that morning, after having sworn off the drug for the previous month, and felt it had affected his judgment. Daniels told officers he left the 19th Street home that day to clear his head, after having had an argument with his child’s mother, who lived there, Reece said.
Walking south on the riverwalk, toward the 14th Street bridge, he encountered Harris, who “walked up to him aggressively,” and he felt he had to defend himself, Daniels told police, so he shot Harris, Reece said.
A man and woman who were on the bridge witnessed the shooting, telling police they heard shots, looked to the north, and saw a someone in a teal hoodie standing over a man who was down. They said the man was trying to get up and raised his right hand as if to ward off more shots. The gunman kept shooting, they told investigators, and later they heard a second set of shots.
Daniels in his interview told Reece that after he shot Harris, he encountered a second man.
“He turns around and sees him reaching into his pocket,” Reece said Daniels explained. Again feeling threatened, he opened fire, he told Reece. Then he ran back to the home on 19th Street, he told police.
Harris was shot eight or nine times, and Burkus about six times, officers testified.
Reece said he asked Daniels what the suspect would say to the victims’ families, if he could, and Daniels replied “that he was sorry.”
The investigation
Daniels, 29, is charged with capital murder and being a convicted felon illegally possessing a firearm. He has a previous conviction in Russell County for manslaughter, said prosecutor Ken Davis.
Davis retired as the district attorney on Dec. 16, but has been appointed by his successor to handle Daniels’ case. Daniels was represented by defense attorney Allen Jones.
District Court Judge Walter Gray found sufficient evidence to order Daniels held without bond. The case next goes to a grand jury for indictment.
Much of the hearing focused on how police pieced the case together after officers found the two men dead around 2 p.m. that Saturday, with no identification on either body.
They were found on the riverwalk north of Troy University’s Phenix City campus, and south of where a railroad trestle crosses the Chattahoochee River. Harris’ body was closer to the college campus; Burkus, 31, was found about 20 yards north, said police Investigator Roderick Johnson.
Officers canvassing the area for surveillance video got a snippet from a resident who lives next to the riverwalk entrance, showing a man in a teal hoodie, khaki pants and black sneakers walking by. They found other images showing the man came from 19th Street, Johnson said.
Police through local media publicized those images, asking for tips, and initially were given the name of a man who had an alibi, Johnson said. But when asked who was rumored to have been the shooter, that man gave police the street name “Damo,” Johnson said.
Because Daniels had a previous conviction, some officers knew he had that same nickname, and started checking photos of the suspect, finding images that appeared to match the surveillance video, Johnson said. On Daniels’ Facebook page, they saw a photo picturing him in khaki pants with black sneakers, Johnson said.
Investigators tracked Daniels to his mother’s home on Emerson Avenue in Columbus, where Johnson went looking for him on Dec. 6. “I already know why you’re here,” he said Daniels mother told him: “He’s not here.”
She had seen the images police distributed through the media, Johnson said: “She recognized his walk in the video.... She was sorry for the families of everyone involved.”
Police got warrants charging Daniels with murder and with violating parole. and he finally was captured when an officer recognized him at his mother’s home.
Reece said witnesses at the home Daniels had visited on 19th Street in Phenix City told police Daniels left there in his teal hoodie, the day of the shooting, and returned 15 to 30 minutes later, telling them he had “witnessed a travesty.”
One of the women there was asked to drive him back to Columbus, Reece testified. She told officers that she saw a gun concealed in Daniels’ hoodie, and that Daniels told her to take another route when he saw police congregating at the 13th Street bridge, Reece said.
When they got to Emerson Avenue, Daniels did not exit the car right away, and she texted her mother, fearing he would harm her, before he finally got out, taking the gun and hoodie with him, she told police.
Though they collected multiple .40-caliber shell casings at the crime scene, and found .40-caliber ammunition in the room Daniels kept in his mother’s home, police have found neither the hoodie nor the gun, investigators said.
Reece said Daniels told him that he threw the gun in a sewer on Cusseta Road in Columbus, telling two men who saw him, “There’s a gun in there. If you want it, you can have it.”
‘He loved his family’
After Tuesday’s hearing, Harris’ mother Linda Harris-Echols told reporters her son did not know Daniels. Authorities initially posited the shooting began as a dispute between Harris and Daniels, and Burkus happened upon it.
Police on Tuesday said Daniels knew neither victim personally.
Harris-Echols said Harris, 40, was her oldest son, and had four siblings. He was a vital part of the family, she said.
“He had a smile that was out of this world,” she said. “He always made me smile.”
He was known by the nickname “Talley,” she said. He left behind a son, who is 19, she added.
She said she is at peace, knowing “my son is with the Lord,” but she wants Daniels to pay the full penalty. He should not be able to breathe freely while her son cannot, she said.
This story was originally published January 17, 2023 at 2:16 PM.