FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NEWS RELEASE
September 7, 2017
For More Information, contact:
Mike Lewis (334) 353-2199
Steve Marshall
Joy Patterson (334) 242-7491
Page 1 of 2
Alabama Attorney General
AG MARSHALL ANNOUNCES COURT OF CRIMINAL
APPEALS UPHOLDS MOBILE MURDER CONVICTIONS
(MONTGOMERY) – Attorney General Steve Marshall announced that the Alabama
Court of Criminal Appeals on Friday upheld convictions for murder and other crimes in
two Mobile shootings.
The Court upheld two capital murder convictions and an attempted murder
conviction of David Tramine Jones. In another case, the Court upheld the intentional
murder and shooting into an occupied vehicle convictions of Michael Dewayne Jackson.
Jones, 25, of Mobile, was convicted in October of 2016 for the murders of Michael
Watkins and Darius Longmire and for the attempted murder of Tremayne Washington. The
evidence at trial showed that on December 30, 2010, a vehicle had stopped on Abrams
Street where the passengers came to talk to a woman who was with Jones. Then Jones
attacked the people in the stopped vehicle with gunfire. The driver, Michael Watkins, was
killed and a passenger, Tremayne Washington, was wounded. Another passenger, Darius
Longmire, was forced into the vehicle’s trunk and the killer took the vehicle to a field where
he planned to dump the bodies. However, police and emergency personnel arrived, and
the killer fled on foot. Jones later stated that he had “shot the driver in the head,” “shot
someone else in the backseat,” and “put the other in the trunk,” because he wanted the
driver’s vehicle to “strip it down and sell it.”
The passenger who had been put into the trunk, Darius Longmire, was assisting
police in their investigation. Upon learning this, Jones stated that he intended to kill him
also. A couple of days after the first murder, Longmire was shot dead at a playground near
Eagle Drive where he had been hiding. Jones was arrested and incarcerated. He told fellow
inmates that “he killed a guy and shot another guy” and described how he set up the
victims, how he shot them, how he had intended to dispose of their bodies, and that “he got
some tennis shoes and a little money and some watches.”
Jones was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for his capital
murder convictions, and to life in prison for his attempted murder conviction.
–more–
501 Washington Avenue * Montgomery, AL 36104 * (334) 242-7300
www.ago.state.al.us Page 2 of 2
In the second case, Michael Dewayne Jackson, 34, of Mobile, was convicted in
November of 2016 for the murder of Nikia Fair. The victim was the mother of the killer’s
son, who was then four years old. On April 27, 2015, following a domestic dispute, Fair
drove away with their son in the car with her. Jackson fired three shots into the car. One of
the shots hit Fair, killing her almost instantly. Their son was the only eye-witness to the
murder and he testified at trial that he saw his daddy kill his mother with a gun. Jackson
was sentenced to life in prison for his murder conviction and to 20 years’ imprisonment for
shooting into an occupied vehicle.
Both cases were prosecuted at trial by Mobile County District Attorney Ashley
Rich’s office. Each defendant sought to have his convictions reversed on appeal.
The Attorney General’s Criminal Appeals Section handled the cases during the
appeal process, arguing for the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals to affirm the
convictions. The Court did so in decisions issued last Friday, September 1. Attorney
General Marshall commended Assistant Attorneys General Cecil Brendle and Kristi
Wilkerson of the Attorney General’s Criminal Appeals Section for their successful work in
these cases.
–30–
