The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the 2022 conviction of Dominique Devonah Brand for kidnapping resulting in death, carjacking resulting in death and using or carrying a firearm during a violent crime in a manner constituting murder, a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of South Carolina says.
Brand was convicted in September 2022 after a multiday bench trial.
“We are pleased that the Fourth Circuit has affirmed the convictions we proved beyond a reasonable doubt in the senseless kidnapping and murder of Ms. Mary Ann Elvington,” acting U.S. Attorney Brook B. Andrews said in the release. “This has been a painful ordeal for her loved ones, and we send our continued support to Ms. Elvington’s family.”
Brand entered the Nichols home of Elvington, a retired elementary school teacher, on March 28, 2021, evidence presented at trial showed. Brand forced Elvington to drive him from her house to Lake Waccamaw, North Carolina, and back into South Carolina, sitting behind her on the trip with a shotgun he had stolen. Taking the wheel, Brand drove her to a remote crossroads in Marion County, where he shot her in the back of the head with the shotgun.
Brand denied committing the murder, the release says, but his guilt was proven at trial with DNA evidence, cell phone analytics, and crime scene analysis.
He was sentenced by District Judge Sherri A. Lydon to two concurrent life sentences for the carjacking and kidnapping convictions and 10 consecutive years for using a firearm during the commission of the offenses. Brand, now 33, is being held at United States Penitentiary Hazelton in West Virginia.
The post 4th Circuit upholds conviction in SC senior’s slaying first appeared on South Carolina Lawyers Weekly.