EATONTON, Ga. — Editor's note: Video in this story is from the start of jury selection.
Jury selection began this week in the trial of Ricky Dubose, one of two inmates accused of killing corrections officers Curtis Billue and Christopher Monica in Putnam County in 2017 and leading law enforcement on a manhunt.
District Attorney T. Wright Barksdale III says they’ve qualified 14 potential jurors as of Friday afternoon. It doesn’t mean they’re picked for the jury – just that they’re eligible to serve and neither side objects.
Barksdale says their goal is to qualify a pool of 60 people. Then, lawyers on both sides will narrow the group down to 12 jurors and several alternates.
Barksdale could not say how long jury selection may take, but court officials have estimated testimony may not start until June.
CASE TIMELINE
June 13, 2017: Investigators say Ricky Dubose and Donnie Rowe were being transported on a bus when they overpowered the two guards, killed them, and escaped. It happened on Highway 16 W of Sparta near Eatonton around 6:45 a.m. There were 33 prisoners and two guards on the bus.
A man was driving on the highway when he saw the stopped bus and thought it was part of a work detail. When he stopped his car, he was robbed at gunpoint. The driver was unharmed and flagged down the next car for help.
During a media briefing that night, Sheriff Howard Sills said the two inmates broke into a home in Morgan County earlier that day. The home was ransacked and Dubose and Rowe stole some food and clothes, according to Sills.
June 14, 2017: The search for the two inmates expanded around the Southeast. Authorities said they recovered the vehicle taken by the two escaped inmates near the scene of the house burglary.
That night, a white Ford F-250 was stolen from the Seven Islands Road area of Morgan County.
June 15, 2017: Police in Shelbyville, Tennessee, told the GBI they responded to a home invasion where the two inmates tied two people up and left the scene.
According to Bedford County Sheriff Austin Swing, Dubose and Rowe ditched a vehicle at the base of a hill in Shelbyville, covering the car with grass and branches.
Swing said they forced their way into a home at gunpoint and the couple who lived there spent the next three hours tied up while the fugitives ate their beef stew and pilfered their valuables.
He said the two stole the couple's Jeep Cherokee and led deputies on a high-speed chase followed by a foot chase down I-24 just south of Murfreesboro.
A nearby homeowner heard the men outside and held them at gunpoint until law enforcement arrived.
June 20, 2017: Dubose and Rowe make their first appearance in court. District Attorney Stephen Bradley requests the death penalty.