The Augusta man accused of killing a two-year-old by firing a gun in her house is on trial for murder this week.
Marquie Bartholomew Gunter, 32, was already a convicted child molester when he met the toddler’s mother while both worked at a meat packing plant, according to court records.
Soon, he and Jackqueline Ingram had a baby on the way. The child, Gunter’s son, was 10 days old on April 16, 2019, when Gunter asked to use Ingram’s mini van after she picked him up from work, Assistant Augusta Circuit District Attorney Keagan Waystack said Tuesday.
Gunter faces up to life in prison on a six-count indictment for felony murder, aggravated assault, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and while committing a felony and criminal damage to property. He’s on trial this week in the court of Chief Superior Court Judge Daniel J. Craig.
“I just had a baby, so I needed my car,” Ingram testified. With the newborn and three other children in the house, including two-year old Ja’Ziah Pollard, she couldn’t risk needing the car while Gunter was away, and sometimes he didn’t answer his phone, she said.
Gunter responded with something like, “If I can’t use your car, nobody can,” she said. He fired 14 bullets into the 2010 Chrysler van parked in front of her Meadowbrook Drive home, totaling the vehicle, Ingram said.
She’d locked him out of the house and was calling 911 when he kicked in the door. In 911 audio played for the court, Ingram told the dispatcher Gunter “shot up my car” and was providing her location, when a loud pop rang out.
Ingram said the bullet came so close, her ears started ringing.
The 15th bullet from Gunter’s gun had ricocheted off the concrete floor and struck Ja’Ziah Pollard, who had just turned 2, in the forehead. Gunter cried out, “No, no, no, no,” then fled the scene, Ingram testified. The little girl didn’t make it.
During his four years in the Richmond County Jail, Gunter wrote more than 40 handwritten letters to his public defender, Daniel Franck, and to the court in efforts to represent himself pro se, according to court records.
In opening arguments, Franck said Gunter was contributing money to the household and that Ingram entrusted him to care for the children when she ran errands.
Gunter was “simply trying to put the gun away when it went off,” Franck said. “Just because you have a gun doesn’t meant make you guilty of murder.”
Awaiting trial, Gunter filed a handwritten lawsuit last year against Sheriff Richard Roundtree, Franck and former District Attorney Natalie Paine.
Gunter contended he was “set up” by Paine and as a result was beaten and strip searched by jailers. An officer who claimed to have held the child as she died called Gunter “baby killer” and assaulted him, he said. A U.S. District judge dismissed the lawsuit for failing to state a claim.
Gunter previously served four years in prison for child molestation, according to court records. He was 18 and the victim was 13 at the time of the assault.
