Two men convicted of killing transgender woman Skyler Gilmore in 2021 were sentenced to life in prison by a Dekalb County judge on November 13.
Davonte Fore, 26, and Jaquan Brooks, 25, were convicted in October for shooting and killing Gilmore outside her apartment in Stone Mountain, Georgia, on June 4, 2021. Detectives used photo data and surveillance video to link Fore and Brooks to the crime, according to Fox 5. Prosecutors said the two were members of a local gang and murdered Gilmore because she was sexually involved with another gang member.
Police were called to Gilmore’s residence around 2am that night by a friend of Gilmore.
“The woman who called 911 to report the shooting was on scene and spoke with police. She said she was a friend of Gilmore’s and had been on the phone with her just before the shooting,” DeKalb County District Attorney Sherry Boston said in the press release. “The woman said Gilmore told her she needed to hang up because she was getting a call from the front gate of the apartment complex. Gilmore then called her friend back and said she had been shot. The friend rushed to Gilmore’s apartment to try to help and dialed 911.”
Brooks was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole, plus five years for a possession charge. Fore was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole plus 10 years for a possession charge and five years for possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. However, Fore is currently on the run.
“[Fore is] an absolute danger to the community, he’s a member of a known gang and this was a hit, this was an intentional member,” Boston said.
Chauncey Gilmore, Gilmore’s father, told Fox 5 after the sentencing that he feels he “got justice” for Skyler’s death.
“I feel real good, but I would feel a lot better once they get him, Davonte Fore,” he said. “But I feel good.”
Gilmore’s death was previously uncounted in HRC’s tracking of trans murders in 2021 due to a lack of reporting. Not much is publicly known about Gilmore’s life. She was a cashier at a department store, but a friend of Gilmore told police that she was “involved with survival sex, a form of prostitution where someone engages in sex in exchange for basic necessities like food or shelter” – work she was engaged in with the gang member who led her to get targeted by Fore and Brooks.
“Gilmore’s murderer fled while on bond,” Tori Cooper, the Director of Community Engagement for HRC’s Transgender Justice Initiative, said in a statement. “The fact that it took events like this to make headlines speaks to the injustices consistently faced by Black transgender women in this country. We are more than our murders: we are friends, family, and neighbors with hopes and dreams, and we are people who love and have been loved. Gilmore deserved security in life, and she deserves recognition in death.”
Anyone with information about Fore’s whereabouts is asked to contact the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office Fugitive Unit at 404-298-8132.