The long-awaited trial in the 2022 killing of Alan Newsome is underway this week in Richmond County Superior Court.
Newsome, 25, was a nurse at Eisenhower Army Medical Center who was married to a Richmond County Sheriff’s deputy. His body was found March 18, 2022, in a driveway at Rosetown Trailer Park.
Police would identify four suspects in the homicide, including Carlos Figueroa. Figueroa, then 29, was Newsome’s brother-in-law and was extradited from Pinellas County, Fla., in mid-April after the killing. The other three suspects were Brentin Coleman, who was then 19, T’Zaiah Dukes, then 17, and Ortegas Jones, then 17.
According to prior reports, the attack on Newsome was allegedly precipitated by an earlier confrontation on St. Patrick’s Day in downtown Augusta.
Newsome and his wife had been ejected from a Broad Street club after an altercation. Their argument continued outside, where Newsome’s wife spotted her brother, Figueroa, and went to him. This sparked another argument involving Newsome, Figueroa and the three teens.
When the argument broke up, Figueroa told Newsome that Newsome knew where to find him. Hours later, Newsome was dead at the trailer park where Figueroa lived.
In opening statements Tuesday, Assistant District Attorney Kevin Davis emphasized to jurors that every person who participates in a crime can be held accountable. Newsome had been expecting a “fair fight” with no weapons, he said.
Instead, Figueroa entered the fistfight by pistol-whipping Newsome, Davis said. What ensued was the three younger defendants telling “a great deal of lies” to investigators, he said.
Attorney for Coleman, Pete Theodocian, said the 19-year-old at the time had been “couch-surfing” with friends and had never been arrested.
Newsome was suicidal, drinking heavily and behaving badly, Theodocian said. The defendants took offense at his treatment of his wife and a use of the “n” word, but to Coleman it was leading to a misdemeanor fistfight at best, he said.
“The states’s square peg is not going to fit into this round hole,” he said.
Only two men are on trial this week for Alan Newsome’s murder. Attorneys for the defendants would mention why: Dukes had turned state’s witness and is now a free man, Theodocian said.
Keith Johnson, attorney for Figueroa, said deals had been struck for the other two defendants, who will be sentenced after the trial.
Johnson said prosecutors would struggle to provide evidence of what they allege as well as to find witnesses without bias.
Figueroa didn’t cause a scene over Newsome’s alleged abuse–instead he called his mother and asked her to check on his sister, Johnson said. The three younger defendants, meanwhile, told so many contradictory lies they can’t be trusted, he said.
“I wouldn’t ask them to try to tell me how to get to South Augusta,” he said.
Testimony in the trial is expected to continue Wednesday morning.
