A Gwinnett County man was sentenced to life in prison without ever stepping foot in the courtroom, according to a release from the district attorney’s office.
Edward Samuel Dukes, 40, has been convicted this week of criminal attempt to commit a crime (murder), kidnapping with bodily injury and several other charges.
He refused to be present at the trial and heard the entire nine-day proceeding through a speaker in his jail cell. The jury returned their verdict March 7 after deliberating for three hours.
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At 7:40 a.m. on Jan. 3, 2017, police arrived at Dukes’ Lawrenceville apartment and saw a man in the parking lot covered in blood. The man, Dukes’ roommate, said that Dukes had pistol whipped and beaten him and Dukes’ girlfriend. The roommate escaped by jumping out of a window. Dukes forced his girlfriend into his black Chevrolet Tahoe, and he drove out of the complex, according to the release.
Gwinnett County police and Georgia State Patrol officers found Dukes’ vehicle driving near the intersection of Duluth Highway and Highway 316. Initially, Dukes initially refused to stop, but he eventually stopped at the exit ramp to Collins Hill Road, according to the release. He was taken into custody and police found Dukes’ girlfriend “unconscious and barely breathing,” with a gunshot wound to the head, the DA’s office said.
The woman had half of her skull removed in a life-saving surgery at Gwinnett Medical Center-Lawrenceville. A gun was never recovered from Dukes or the Tahoe. In Dukes’ pocket, police did find multiple baggies of cocaine and several alprazolam pills, a prescription anti-anxiety drug usually sold under the brand Xanax.
The woman does not remember being shot, she testified at trial. Her neurosurgeon described her survival and reccovery as “miraculous,” the DA’s office said.
Dukes was sentenced to life plus 88 years without the possibility of parole. In sentencing Dukes, Judge Kathryn Schrader described him as “evil.”
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