Second man convicted of killing 'Twink,' a favorite city barber
- Jamie Duffy
- Jul 18
- 4 min read
Updated: Jul 21
ALLEN COUNTY, Ind. ---On the night of Feb. 19, 2023, Brandon Golden and Daisha “Twink” Fitts walked out of the Fraternal Order of Eagles casino on Bluffton Road at 11:23 p.m., got into Golden’s van and left happy, pulling out on to Winchester Road
Six minutes later, Golden was frantically speeding back into the casino parking lot, his friend Daisha, a beloved local barber, dying between the passenger and the back seat after she was shot in an ambush at Winchester and Airport Expressway.
Friday afternoon, the second man to be charged for her shooting death was found guilty of murder in Allen Superior Court.
Devonte Travier, 30, who decided to “take it to the box,” will be sentenced Aug. 15.
Original article published here:
At the center of this trial was Trevon Giddens, a wheelchair bound “cuz” of Demaury Haywood, convicted of this same homicide in November, 2023.
Giddens followed Golden around the casino that night and reported his movements back to Haywood, including photos. Detectives watched the video and surmised he was part of the plot they eventually learned was to kill Golden.
Maybe it was over a woman. Maybe there was a price on Golden’s head as he suggested when he testified at Haywood’s trial. Giddens said Haywood “had some personal problems” with Golden.
No one had a problem with the victim who was well known in the city.
Giddens, who relayed Golden’s movements by text to his cuz, could honestly say he never laid eyes on Haywood and Travier at the casino that night.
They were waiting in a rented 2021 gray Nissan in the Eagles casino parking lot, but had quickly cleared out when Fort Wayne cops “rolled through.”
Giddens who followed Golden and Fitts out into the night gave the signal, according to court testimony.
“He on Winchester.”
It may seem unfair that Giddens hasn’t paid for his role in the slaying and Travier’s defense attorney, Tyree Barfield, pointed that out.
“He’s just as guilty as anyone else,” Barfield said during closing arguments Friday after four days of testimony in Allen Superior Court. It was the prosecution’s trick to make one of the suspects “flip on the other."
Giddens' role can be traced to Feb. 14 when he first scoped out the FOE casino where Golden and Giddens were regular customers.
At that point, text messages between Haywood and Giddens used words like “we” and “bro,” Barfield said. No mention of Travier.
However, a FaceTime call between Haywood and Giddens the day after the homicide, published in an Indiana appellate brief, did implicate Travier in the shooting.
“During the FaceTime call, Haywood told Giddens that he and Travier had been in a rental car and that as “they was rolling away, he thought they was shooting back, and he shot through the [car’s] door,” the brief stated.
Giddens was at first a suspect and then "talked" when homicide detective Liza Anglin approached him with the fact that he’d been seen on the casino’s surveillance video dogging Golden at the casino.
Because of Giddens’ testimony and that of some women, and jail phone calls between Haywood and “Vonte” at the Noble County Jail where Haywood was picked up and detained after he went to Firekeepers Casino, Travier was implicated.
Testimony identified Travier driving the Nissan that night, a car he had someone else rent from Enterprise Rent-A-Car. The car was immediately identified by Golden who remembered it passing his van.
The gray Nissan was later found at Southbridge Apartments with bullet holes in it. Haywood's and Travier's DNA was also found in the car, on the steering wheel, the gear shift and the passenger door handle.
When Anglin found out that on Feb. 27, Travier had crashed a Nissan in a ditch at Nail and Parrot Roads, she immediately got suspicious after she heard Travier had thrown a gun in the ditch before he left with a friend.
She commandeered the county to drain the ditch while the homicide team dug in the muck.
The search was worth it, rendering the key fob to the “murder car,” as the prosecution put it, and a 9mm Smith & Wesson likely used in the homicide.
The next night, Gang Unit officer Geoff Norton attempted to pull Travier over in a traffic stop as he drove a borrowed black 2016 Nissan Versa.
He took the cops on a six-minute chase, and during that episode. tossed a bag out of the vehicle. It contained an enormous amount of methamphetamine that went beyond personal use, Chief Counsel Tesa Helge said. Try 128.5 grams. An 8-ball which will last you a weekend is only 3.5 grams or an ounce.
The traffic stop is how Travier caught the dealing charge, resisting and obstructing justice.He was found guilty of those charges, too.
The meth was what Barfield argued Travier was referring to when he spoke to the jailed Haywood about “the under,” not the suspect vehicle.
Barfield set up a narrative that the $1,600 worth of meth could have just been a way of keeping a stash around rather than having to go to a dealer all the time. Kind of like how you purchase groceries at Costco.
That comment brought some smirks to the prosecution table which included homicide detective Luke MacDonald, Helge and deputy prosecutor Alik Hall.
Barfield was quick to say his client had “to eat” the resisting charge as he showed drone video recording the chase. He compared it to watching Pacman.
Closing arguments in Allen Superior Court Friday have been posted to The Probable Cause Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61566617070293
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