Venue change costly in Ga. baby shooting

[FrodosPet]

http://chronicle.augusta.com/news/crime-courts/2013-08-17/venue-change-costly-ga-baby-shooting

BRUNSWICK -- Glynn County has approved the spending of $162,000 for the trial in Marietta, Ga., of 18-year-old De’Marquise Elkins and his mother, Karimah, in the March shooting death of 13-month-old Antonio Santiago.

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The toddler was shot in the face as he sat in a stroller pushed by his mother, Sherry West, who refused Elkins’ demand for her purse and was shot in the leg herself, an indictment says. Elkins is also charged with aggravated assault in the wounding of a minister in another attempted robbery on a Brunswick Street weeks earlier.

Karimah Elkins is charged with providing a false alibi for her son and throwing a pistol in a saltwater pond. Police say the .22-caliber pistol was used to kill Antonio and wound the minister.

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The $162,000 will pay toward getting him and other witnesses to Marietta for trial along with 15 to 20 Glynn County police officers, sheriff’s deputies, staff from the District Attorney’s Office and Cobb County court personnel and deputies.

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We obviously need to wait and find out about the gun. Was it the same weapon used to shoot the baby and the mother? If so, the defense has a hard job ahead of them.

[FrodosPet]

1. Murder defendant De'Marquise Elkins' sister Sabrina will not be tried in Marietta

http://jacksonville.com/news/crime/2013-08-09/story/murder-defendant-demarquise-elkins-sister-sabrina-will-not-be-tried

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Superior Court Judge Stephen Kelley ruled Thursday that De’Marquise Elkins’ older sister, Sabrina, had the right to be tried in Glynn County, where she is charged with disposing of a revolver that police say was used the shootings. Her appointed lawyer, W. Frank Aspinwall, had never filed a motion for a change of venue and told Kelley Thursday that Sabrina Elkins did not want her trial moved.

“Your trial will be tried in Glynn County’’ sometime this fall, Kelley said.

Karimah Elkins’ lawyer, J. Wrix McIlvaine, said she wants her trial outside Glynn County. He had argued last week that defendants had a right to be tried in the county where they are charged and Kelley agreed, but McIlvaine said he wanted to discuss it further with Karimah Elkins before she made a final decision.

“She believes she will have the best [opportunity] for a fair and impartial verdict up in Cobb County,’’ McIlvaine said Thursday.

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