Danville murder suspect found guilty

Danville Register & Bee
Published: May 30, 2008

Updated 7:30 p.m.

Demetris Tyrell Jennings was convicted of first-degree murder this afternoon in a jury trial in Danville Circuit Court. The jury has recommended Jennings serve life in prison for the crime.

Jennings was on trial for the beating death of 49-year-old Reginald Lee Fitzgerald on Oct. 10.

He will be formally sentenced by Judge David Melesco at noon on July 8 in Danville Circuit Court.

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Demetris Tyrell Jennings was found guilty of first degree murder in the death of Reginald Fitzgerald this afternoon.

The jury announced its verdict Friday in Danville Circuit Court and they are deliberting his punishment at this time.

Jennings was accused of killing Reginald Fitzgerald, 49, over $20 on Oct. 10 at the corner of Poplar and Ridge streets. 

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Defense attorneys for a Danville man accused of beating another man to death say the victim’s murder was not pre-meditated.

The murder trial of Demetris Tyrell Jennings began Thursday in Danville Circuit Court.

Jennings is accused of killing Reginald Fitzgerald, 49, over $20 on Oct. 10 at the corner of Poplar and Ridge streets.

Commonwealth’s Attorney William Fuller III and Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Michael Newman presented physical evidence and called witnesses to testify that Jennings killed Fitzgerald.

Police officers testified that witnesses reported Jennings beat Fitzgerald with his fists and feet, a piece of wood and a length of metal from an old light fixture on the night of Oct. 10 over an altercation about $20 that Fitzgerald owed Jennings.

Two ex-girlfriends testified the defendant had admitted to the crime, and another witness said he saw Jennings administer part of the beating.

Melissa Hipes, a forensic scientist with the Virginia Department of Forensic Science, explained how DNA tests showed — to a 1 in 6.5 billion chance of error — that the blood on the wood and metal, as well as on Jennings’ clothing, was Fitzgerald’s.

Dr. Amy Thorpe, chief medical examiner in Virginia’s Western District, performed the autopsy on Fitzgerald and detailed his wounds for the jury. Those wounds included three broken ribs, a damaged spleen and liver, brain swelling, a lung full of blood and about 47 lacerations, scrapes and abrasions on Fitzgerald’s face and torso.

Thorpe also testified that Fitzgerald’s blood alcohol level was .27, about three times the legal limit, though an earlier test at Danville Regional Medical Center put the reading at .31, almost four times the legal limit.

Fitzgerald had no injuries on his hands, a sign that he did not fight back, according to Thorpe.

Witnesses also said Jennings went back to beat Fitzgerald twice after the initial attack.

After the first attack, Jennings allegedly took an acquaintance behind the $1.99 Cleaners to show off what damage he had done. At that time, Fitzgerald was on his feet, leaning over a railing on the deck behind an old church behind the cleaners, the witness said.

Jennings knocked him down and hit him with the metal piece, according to the witness, who said when he asked Jennings what he was doing, Jennings dropped the metal piece and “stomped” Fitzgerald.

Public Defender Joseph Schenk said Fitzgerald was “far from helpless,” and described him as an ex-Marine who liked to drink and was homeless, living in back of a nearby defunct church building. On the night he died, Schenk said, Fitzgerald was “beyond drunk.”

The defense presented no witnesses and Jennings didn’t take the stand to defend himself.

Schenk did, however, make a motion to reduce the charge from first-degree to second-degree murder, citing state law that calls for a second-degree charge unless it can be proved the murder was premeditated. He claims the incident was simply a fight — and there are fights and beatings “all the time” — and not a premeditated, willful act of murder.

Both sides rested their cases. The trial resumes at 9 a.m. today.