Murder charges dismissed against Pottstown man in a 2019 gang-related shooting
Elijah Davis, 20, was in prison for almost two years before a Montgomery County judge ruled there was not enough evidence to try him.
A Pottstown man who spent almost two years in prison has been freed after a Montgomery County judge ruled that prosecutors lacked sufficient evidence to link him to a gang-related slaying.
Elijah Davis, 20, was released after Common Pleas Court Judge William Carpenter dismissed first- and third-degree murder, conspiracy, and related charges against him in an order filed Monday. Davis was one of four alleged members of the BGB Gang rounded up by Pottstown police in September 2019 in connection with the death of Keith Robinson.
Three other defendants — Kyshan Brinkley, 25; Jacquan Lee, 26; and Derrick Goins, 28 — are awaiting trial on murder charges after the judge ruled there was sufficient evidence for the cases against them to go forward. They are tentatively scheduled to go to trial early next year.
The roles each man allegedly played in the shooting, including which of the three was the triggerman, remained unclear.
» READ MORE: A drug gang’s rap videos led to murder charges
Davis’ attorney, Dennis Caglia, said Friday that his client was elated at Carpenter’s decision, especially after the delay in having his case heard due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“There was no evidence to connect him to the gang whatsoever, not even tattoos from the gang on him,” Caglia said. “Unfortunately, he had to wait two years for his day in court to prove that.”
BGB is a gang in Pottstown known for pushing drugs and enforcing their territory with violence, police said. The group’s members often record rap videos that they post on social media, and tattoo the gang’s logo on their bodies.
Davis, Caglia said, was not featured in any of the videos presented as evidence by prosecutors.
The group targeted Robinson because he refused to sell Percocet, a powerful opioid painkiller, to one of its members, according to the affidavit of probable cause for the men’s arrests.
Pottstown police found Robinson, 41, shot multiple times as he sat behind the wheel of his parked Infiniti SUV in March 2019, according to court documents.
A witness told police he had seen a slim man dressed in black “pacing back and forth” in a nearby alley about 20 minutes before Robinson was shot, the affidavit said. Surveillance footage showed a man running from the shooting scene. That witness later picked Goins out of a photo lineup.
Additional surveillance footage recorded members of BGB driving in a black Dodge Caravan that Goins had rented the day before the slaying, according to the affidavit. The group later drove to a nightclub in North Philadelphia.
Caglia said Davis was with a group of people in a second vehicle that arrived at the nightclub around the same time and got caught up in the police investigation.