After deliberating about nine hours, a Richmond County jury on Monday found suspect Andrew Dawson not guilty in the 2019 shooting death of a blind elderly woman in her home.
Elizabeth Thompson, 82, was killed by an intruder on Oct. 15, 2019, at her house on Kennedy Drive off Olive Road. A few days later, an eyewitness claimed she saw Dawson climbing out of her kitchen window. He’d been in jail ever since.
Family members who opposed an earlier plea deal offered to Dawson, 25, were deeply disappointed by the verdict, including former Augusta Assistant District Attorney Inga Hicks, who was Thompson’s niece.
“I am disappointed that both law enforcement and the prosecution failed to do what’s necessary to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt,” said Hicks, now a criminal defense attorney in private practice. “The jury should have received more than what they received.”
The trial revealed inconsistencies in the case made by Richmond County investigators. An eyewitness who wasn’t subpoenaed to testify stated confidently on audio, “Yup, that’s him,” but later recanted her ID.
“I really thought I knew, but it’s possible I just don’t know,” she said in a written statement to prosecutors.
There were other loose ends not tied up by prosecutors in the neat package that jurors need to convict, especially in a murder trial, Hicks said.
Not addressed was why Dawson allegedly exited through a second window – first responders had moved her body, which blocked his path to the first – and other key questions, she said.
“When somebody has lost their life, you prioritize those cases. You go through those cases when they first come in,” she said. “You get with your investigator and you hit the streets and you tie up those holes. You make sure the case is complete first, because it’s not going to come in packaged neatly.”
The case began its life under former District Attorney Natalie Paine and continued under District Attorney Jared Williams.
Williams offered Dawson a plea deal in May, but family members opposed it and Richmond County Superior Court Judge Jesse Stone declined to approve it.
Chief Assistant Public Defender Lyndsey Hix said in closing arguments Friday the case was one of “mistaken identity” in which investigators created a “suggestive” photo lineup in which Dawson was the obvious choice.
Chief Assistant District Attorney Kevin Davis said it was up to the jury to determine whether the eyewitness had been truthful in identifying Dawson.
“That’s the case. If you don’t believe her, don’t take another minute,” Davis said, adding that Dawson unlikely intended to kill Thompson and was unaware she was blind.
Near the end of the weeklong trial, Davis encouraged jurors to take their unique viewpoints out into the community, to “let them know the truth about what we do.”
In the end, the system would fail one of its most vulnerable: A poor, elderly, disabled African-American woman. Her lack of connections may explain the outcome, Hicks said.
“I just think that you could not find more of a victim than my aunt,” Hicks said. “My aunt didn’t know anybody. My aunt was poor. My aunt was not connected, my aunt was not affluent. My aunt was not related to anyone affluent or powerful,” she said.
“If we’re not protecting children, if we’re not protecting the elderly, if we’re not protecting the disabled, if we’re not protecting the vulnerable, who are we protecting?” asked Hicks.
Juanita Allen, Thompson’s sister, said she won’t ever feel good about the outcome and that prosecutors likely lost wind when the plea deal fell through.
The case “looked like it was lacking in a lot of things,” Allen said.
“Or they did it to kind of pacify us because we wanted a trial and not a plea deal. I was shocked to believe that when we took it to trial that the verdict didn’t come out the way that I thought,” she said. “It probably did not because of the way that I told you,” she said.
