Police are searching for fugitive convicted of murdering transgender woman

A Georgia man convicted of murdering a transgender woman is on the run after jumping bail during his trial.

Davonte Fore, 26, was convicted along with accomplice JaQuan Brooks, 25, on October 4 of Malice Murder, two counts of Felony Murder, Aggravated Assault, Possession of a Firearm by a Convicted Felon, and Possession of a Firearm during the Commission of a Felony for the June 2021 murder of 25-year-old Skyler Gilmore.

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According to a press release from the DeKalb County District Attorney’s Office, DeKalb County Police officers found Gilmore unresponsive with a gunshot wound to the torso in her Stone Mountain, Georgia, apartment in the early morning hours of June 4, 2021, after receiving a 911 call from a female friend reporting that the 25-year-old had been shot.

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The friend told police that she had been on the phone with Gilmore when Gilmore told her she had to hang up to let someone into the front gate of her apartment complex. Gilmore later called the woman back and told her she’d been shot. The friend went to Gilmore’s apartment, where she called 911.

The friend told investigators that Gilmore was a transgender woman and had been involved in “survival sex,” which the DA’s press release describes as a form of sex work involving “sex in exchange for basic necessities like food or shelter.”

Investigators were able to link Fore’s phone number to multiple calls and text messages on Gilmore’s phone in the hour leading up to her murder, including one text in which she provided the code for her apartment complex’s front gate. They were also able to identify Fore and Brooks as the driver and passenger of a car entering the apartment complex shortly before the shooting via surveillance video. Detectives say Fore and Brooks were members of a local gang and had been ordered to kill Gilmore for sleeping with another gang member.

Fore was arrested in November 2022 but was released on bond this past February over the objections of state prosecutors. At some point during the trial, Fore failed to return to court and is now considered a fugitive. Brooks was taken into custody following the October guilty verdict.

“This is why our office works hard to get bonds denied in cases like this, but it’s not our decision to grant bond,” Jacques Spencer, Supervising Investigator in the Homicide and Gangs Unit at the DeKalb County District Attorney’s Office, told Fox 5 Atlanta.

Gilmore’s father, Chauncey Gilmore, told Fox 5 that Fore is “a bad guy” and that he hopes he’s caught.

“Personally, I don’t think that he’s supposed to have been out on a $25,000 bond on a murder case, but he was, and I understand that, but I’m hoping that the people get him, and they get him fast,” Gilmore said. 

“Our focus is getting him in custody,” Spencer said. “We feel that he’s a danger to society and also the victim’s family deserves to be able to face him in court when he is sentenced for what he did.”  

According to prosecutors, Fore has ties to California, and authorities are asking anyone with information about his whereabouts to contact the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office Fugitive Unit at 404-298-8132 but warned not to approach him as Fore is considered dangerous.

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