Man’s murder conviction upheld

The Georgia Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the murder conviction of Scott Winfield Davis for the 1996 killing of a Buckhead millionaire.

In a unanimous decision, the state’s high court turned down a request for a new trial by Davis, a businessman who once made a long-shot, unsuccessful run for California governor. He was convicted of killing David L. Coffin Jr., an heir to a Connecticut chemical company fortune, because he was dating Davis’ estranged wife, prosecutors said.

At the time, Davis was contesting a divorce filing by Megan Lee, his wife, and had threatened to kill anyone who had sex with her.

Davis got Coffin’s address from a private investigator he had hired to keep tabs on Lee. He then broke into Coffin’s home twice in December 1996 and stole Coffin’s Porsche, which later was found abandoned and burned.

Davis later returned to Coffin’s West Conway Drive mansion, where he shot Coffin, 41, and doused the house with gasoline and set it on fire, prosecutors said..

Because law enforcement and fire officials lost or destroyed a number of pieces of important evidence in the years leading up to the trial, the prosecution’s case was largely circumstantial. But a Fulton County jury convicted Davis after four days of deliberation. He was sentenced to life in prison.