Two men were sentenced Wednesday of following gang orders to kill a transgender woman in 2021, but only one of them was present for the entirety of the trial as the other remains on the run.
JaQuan Brooks, 25, and Davonte Fore, 26, were found guilty Oct. 4 of killing 25-year-old Skyler Gilmore, the DeKalb County District Attorney’s Office announced. They were both sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole, but Brooks got an additional five years on probation while Fore received an additional 15 years in confinement.
Fore attended only the first two days of his trial and was last seen Oct. 1, the DA’s office said in a statement. He is now considered a fugitive, and a bench warrant was issued after his conviction.
“While we are proud of the work of our team to secure convictions in this case, we know justice will not truly be served until Davonte Fore is in custody,” District Attorney Sherry Boston said in a news release. “We encourage anyone with information to come forward.”
The night Gilmore was killed, June 4, 2021, she was on the phone with her friend when she got a call that someone was ringing from the front gate of her apartment complex on South Hairston Road in Redan, prosecutors said. It was close to 2 a.m., and Gilmore told her friend she needed to hang up to answer the call.
When she called back, she told her friend that she had been shot.
Frantic to help, her friend rushed to Gilmore’s apartment and called 911. When police arrived, they found Gilmore unresponsive in her bedroom with a single gunshot wound to her torso, authorities said.
The friend told officers that Gilmore identified as a trans woman and had been involved in “survival sex,” a form of prostitution in which someone engages in sex in exchange for basic necessities like food or shelter, the DA’s office said. It was also later discovered that Brooks and Fore were members of a local gang, which ordered them to kill Gilmore after they “discovered she was sleeping with another member of the gang,” officials said.
Using data from Gilmore’s cellphone, investigators identified a number that had communicated with her through calls and texts multiple times in the hour leading up to the shooting, including a text in which Gilmore sent the gate code, prosecutors said. That phone number was linked to Fore.
Detectives then pulled surveillance video that showed two people inside a white Nissan Rogue entering the apartment complex’s gate at 1:39 a.m., officials said. The video showed Brooks was driving and Fore was a passenger.
Brooks and Fore were convicted of malice murder, two counts of felony murder, aggravated assault, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony.
Brooks was taken into custody immediately following the verdicts, but Fore was not in court. Fore was out on bond pending the trial, officials said.
“Despite the state’s opposition, (he) was released on bond in February 2024, pending trial,” the DA’s office said in a statement. “While he was present for the beginning of the trial, defendant Fore failed to return to court and is now considered a fugitive from justice.”
Anyone with information on Fore’s whereabouts should contact the DeKalb Sheriff’s Office’s Fugitive Unit at 404-298-8132.
— Staff writer Caroline Silva contributed to this article.
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