The last of three men charged in a fatal beating believed to be a gang initiation is scheduled to have a plea bargain Friday in a case the DeKalb district attorney once said demanded the death penalty.
Darrius Aderhold is expected to take a plea for his role in the death of Robert Ross, whose badly beaten and disfigured body was found in a Super 8 motel in Tucker nearly four years ago, said DA spokesman Erik Burton in an email Thursday.
Burton said the reasons for the reversal in seeking the death penalty would be explained after the plea on Friday.
“The facts of this case scream out for the death penalty, and I don’t really know what else to do in a scenario like this,” District Attorney Robert James said in 2012. “The levels of violence in this case are just so high that it shocks the conscience.”
Aderhold was associated with the Bloods gang, according to the indictment. Police said the gang initiation targeted men perceived to be gay. Two others, Jonathan Ray and Christopher Foreman, have already entered plea bargains for life and life plus 15 years respectively for Ross’ murder, Burton said.
DeKalb County police found Ross' bloody and beaten body inside the motel room on the afternoon of Jan. 8, 2012. Detectives identified Aderhold, Ray and Foreman as the suspects before they had even identified the victim and arrested them days after the killing, according to an AJC.com story.
Ross, 46, was so brutalized that investigators couldn’t initially identify him, police said.
The three men lured Ross to the room, bound him, and stomped him and beat him to death with a wooden chair leg before taking his pants, his jewelry and his car – all to advance as Bloods, prosecutors said.
Aderhold, who was 22 at the time, had no previous arrest record.
Ray, then 20, was on probation after being arrested in 2010 on burglary charges according to court records.
Foreman, then 20, had been arrested in November 2011 for giving false statements to police.
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