Derrick Baker was looking for a little sympathy as he sat on the stand this week testifying in his own trial. An admitted crack cocaine addict, he told the jury of his peers - well, not really, but that’s what we say in America - that he thought the house he burgled was “abandoned.” His real goal was some peace and a source of water. “I wanted to enjoy my high without any disturbance,” he said.

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.