Chatham County jury finds Rashaun Padgett not guilty of murder in death of Alexis Devoe

This column is part of a weekly round-up of notable grand jury indictments and court decisions, following through on cases reported by Savannah Morning News public safety and courts reporter Drew Favakeh. If there are cases you're curious about, email Drew at [email protected].

Jury finds Rashaun Padgett not guilty of 21 counts, including murder

On Oct. 16, a Chatham County jury found Rashaun Padgett not guilty of murdering Alexis Devoe, who was 17 at the time of her death in Feb. 2020.

At a hearing on Oct. 4, Superior Court Judge Michael Karpf denied a motion to quash the murder indictment for Padgett, who was charged with 21 counts including malice murder, three counts of felony murder, aggravated assault, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. According to prosecutors, Padgett and Jamontay Williams had been involved in a “long-running dispute.”

On Feb. 8, 2020, Williams arrived at a convenience store in Savannah with a car full of people. As Williams approached the store, he saw Padgett inside. Williams retreated to his vehicle, then went back to the store. Padgett then confronted Williams near his vehicle. After words were exchanged, Padgett fired multiple shots. Devoe, the front seat passenger, received a fatal wound while seated with her 5-month-old son. Two other people were also injured.

More: In Session: Defense attorney claims former Savannah Police officer threatened key witness

More: In Session: Judge denies motion to quash murder indictment

Jury finds Victor McMillar not guilty of 16 counts, including murder

On Oct. 17, a jury found Victor McMillar not guilty on all 16 counts, including malice murder and felony murder, for two murders he was charged with committing in 2018.

Prosecutors charged McMillar with murdering Donte Chisolm on Nov. 3, 2018, in front of 210 W. 61st St, and with murdering Jamall Chris Johnson two days later, Nov. 5, 2018, on the 2200 block of Bolling Street. McMillar has been incarcerated in the Chatham County Detention Center since Dec. 17, 2018, according to jail records.

McMillar’s defense attorney, Gregory Crawford, argued that the lead Savannah Police Department (SPD) detective who investigated the case intimidated the state’s star witness, according to previous reporting by the Savannah Morning News. Crawford also alleged that Wood “redacted police reports without legal authority to hide the identity of witnesses and made false statements to obtain search warrants.”

In late-July, SPD fired Wood after an internal investigation revealed that in another murder investigation she had falsified information in multiple search warrant applications tied to the 2021 murder of Charles Vinson. In mid-June, prosecutors dropped murder charges against Marquis Parrish, a suspect in the Vinson murder.

“The investigation, in my opinion, was not handled properly on the front-end,” Crawford said in a phone call, referring to the McMillar case. “The prosecutor, Lyle Burnham, did the best he could with it. But there were gaps. There were holes. There were things that were not examined. Things they [Savannah Police] didn’t do that that they could have done. And they just didn’t do it, for whatever reason.”

Crawford said that SPD did not test for other people’s DNA on the crime gun. Instead, SPD only tested for McMillar’s DNA, according to Crawford. The defense attorney argued that it was such a small amount of DNA that it was possible that it could have been transferred DNA.

Phone records also were never pulled from other suspects in the case, added Crawford. A crime lab test revealed that another man had gunshot residue on his hands, but that detail never appeared in the detective’s report, said Crawford. He found the crime lab report “buried among 100 different reports.”

“It could have been more thorough,” Crawford said about the SPD investigation. “When you're going to charge somebody with murder, you need to be able to show the jury that you did everything.”

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Chatham County jury finds Rashaun Padgett not guilty of murder