NEWPORT NEWS — A jury on Thursday acquitted a man in the slaying of a 16-year-old Denbigh High School student two years ago in a trial that appeared to be heading for a hung jury the day before.
The verdict came after more than eight hours of deliberations over two days — the longest Circuit Court Judge Christopher Papile has seen in the 125 jury trials he’s presided over. It’s a rare case of a deadlocked jury coming to a unanimous decision following a stalemate.
Just before 4 p.m. on Oct. 15, 2023, Jamari Davis and two acquaintances were hanging out near an electrical box outside a northern Newport News apartment complex.
Then a gunshot rang out.
Jamari was shot execution-style in the back of the head with a .38-caliber handgun. His body was found near the electrical box at the Courthouse Green Apartments, off Old Courthouse Way in Denbigh.
Ring camera footage from a nearby home captures two other teens — then aged 19 and 17 — running away.
Which of those two teens shot Jamari — and why — has been the subject of a police and prosecution investigation ever since.
Jamari Davis, 16, was shot and killed in Newport News on Oct. 15, 2023.
Police initially charged both teens, Tigre Reynolds Anthony II, then 19, and Mackenzie N. Smith, then 17, with first-degree murder, conspiracy and gun charges.
The motive wasn’t clear. But investigators and prosecutors saw Anthony as the more culpable of the two.
Earlier this year, Smith cut a deal with the prosecution to plead guilty to lesser charges in return for his testimony at this week’s trial.
But the prosecution’s evidence — centering on Smith’s testimony and text messages between him and Anthony after the shooting — wasn’t enough.
Two Ring camera videos presented by the prosecution weren’t definitive.
In one video, Smith is seen handing his handgun over to Anthony before the group of five teens went behind a row of apartments on Hustings Lane to smoke weed. According to trial testimony, two of the teens soon left, with Jamari staying behind with Smith and Anthony.
Smith, now 19, testified this week that Anthony shot Jamari at point-blank range after hearing Jamari singing an impromptu rap song. The song, Smith testified, was interpreted by Anthony as disrespecting another friend who had previously been shot.
While Jamari’s slaying isn’t captured on the footage, a second Ring video shows Anthony and Smith fleeing after the shooting.
A Newport News police detective wrote in a 2023 criminal complaint affidavit that the footage shows Anthony “running with a firearm in his hand.”
But the grainy footage isn’t clear, and prosecutors have long since backed off that assertion. Instead, Smith testified this week that he was carrying the handgun as they fled — that Anthony handed it to him after shooting Jamari.
In a text message to Smith after the shooting, Anthony said “man was dissing” the other teen who had been shot.
“Don’t say (nothing),” Anthony wrote. “DON’T TRUST A SOUL.”
Anthony tells Smith not to go to school the next day and “don’t make it obvious,” saying that “people started hitting at us” and “we ran,” and that “everything happen so fast.”
“Make what look obvious,” Smith asked in reply, saying he doesn’t have “(expletive) to do with that situation.”
Anthony told Smith he was leaving for Mississippi, advising Smith to come with him, saying Smith needed to “break it down” for “your (people)” and “tell them U gotta leave state.”
“Don’t tell the police (expletive),” Anthony adds, saying the two can’t communicate anymore and not to text back. “Delete our messages when you awake.”
Throughout the trial, Anthony’s defense lawyer, Daymen Robinson, raised doubts about the prosecution’s evidence.
The slaying of Jamari Davis took place at this electric box on Oct. 15, 2023 on Hustings Lane at the Courthouse Green Apartments.
Though it was clear Jamari was murdered, Robinson asserted that prosecutors had not proven who had carried it out.
After about four hours of deliberation Wednesday, the 12-member jury said about 3 p.m. that they were deadlocked. In an unusual move, the jury foreman provided details of the split — 10-2 in favor of acquittal — to a sheriff’s deputy.
Papile, the judge, then issued an “Allen charge” — an exhortation to jurors to keep attempting to reach a unanimous verdict while not sacrificing their individual consciences.
About 4:45 p.m., the foreman reported that one juror had switched to the not guilty side, and that the split was now 11-1. Papile told them to keep trying.
Just before 5:30, they were still deadlocked.
Papile said outside the jury’s presence that he was ready to declare a hung jury, which would have meant a mistrial. “They seem to be entrenched,” he said.
But Anthony’s lawyer, Robinson, said “progress was being made,” and he urged Papile to have jurors come back Thursday morning.
Papile agreed, telling the panel he was sending them home to “clear your minds” and “reflect on what you’ve been doing,” without “anybody staring at each other in a small room.”
Jurors came back at 9:30 a.m. Thursday. They knocked on their door at 11:10 a.m., saying they reached a verdict. A clerk read the decision a few minutes later: The jury found Anthony not guilty of murder and using a firearm in a felony.
Anthony, now 21, who faced the prospect of up to life in prison, was expected to be freed from custody Thursday night.
“My God is an awesome God, and he’s not gonna let an innocent man do time for something he didn’t do,” Anthony’s grandmother, Synthia Lawson, of Mississippi, said after the verdict.
“It was a good verdict,” said Anthony’s mother, Alisha Sellers, also of Mississippi. “He was innocent, and he didn’t do it.”
The case’s prosecutor, Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Mary Button, said only that she respected the jury’s decision.
Jamari was active in his church, Denbigh United Presbyterian, and had volunteered doing audio-visuals at a service the week before he was killed.
“We loved him very much,” said the Rev. Deborah Dail, the church’s senior pastor who attended the trial. “From the time he was 5 years old, he was active in the church and involved. And as he grew older, he was involved in more volunteer activities.”
Jamari leaves behind two sisters and a brother. His mother declined to comment immediately after the verdict.
Smith will be sentenced on Sept. 5 on a felony count of being an accessory after a homicide and misdemeanor counts of resisting arrest, carrying a concealed weapon and having a firearm as a minor.
Peter Dujardin, 757-897-2062, pdujardin@dailypress.com
