Lawyer that kept Jesse Matthew off death row, now defends suspect in shooting of U.Va. football players

Neal Augenstein | naugenstein@wtop.com
March 13, 2024, 8:22 AM


Students and community members gather for a candlelight vigil after a shooting that left three students dead the night before at the University of Virginia, Monday, Nov. 14, 2022, in Charlottesville, Va. (Shaban Athuman/Richmond Times-Dispatch via AP)(AP/Shaban Athuman)

The defense attorney who kept Jesse Leroy Matthew off death row for the Charlottesville, Virginia, murders of Hannah Graham and Morgan Harrington will be at the defense table when a former University of Virginia student goes on trial for killing three college football players in 2022. ... Christopher Darnell Jones Jr. is charged with three counts of aggravated murder and will go on trial in January 2025.

“Originally he’d been charged with several counts of second-degree murder, in addition to some weapons counts, and the Commonwealth’s attorney made the decision to increase those charges,” said defense attorney Doug Ramseur, in an exclusive interview with WTOP.

Jones was a U.Va. student in November 2022 and a former member of the football team when police say he opened fire on a charter bus that had brought back students from a field trip to Washington, D.C. ... Football players Lavel Davis Jr., D’Sean Perry and Devin Chandler were killed, while a fourth member of the team, Mike Hollins, and another student were wounded.

In 2016, in his former position of chief capital defender in Central Virginia, Ramseur represented Jesse Matthew, who was charged with the 2014 death of University of Virginia student Hannah Graham and the 2009 death of Morgan Harrington, a Virginia Tech student who was killed after attending a concert in Charlottesville.

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Neal Augenstein
Neal Augenstein has been a reporter at WTOP since 1997. Through the years, Neal has covered many of the crimes and trials that have gripped the region. Neal's been pleased to receive awards over the years for hard news, feature reporting, use of sound and sports.

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