Who were Ricky Dubose's victims? Georgia inmate sentenced to death for murdering 2 prison officers
EATONTON, GEORGIA: Ricky Dubose has been found guilty of murder in the shootings of corrections officers Curtis Billue, 58, and Christopher Monica, 42, on a transport bus in Putnam County in June 2017. He and fellow prisoner Donnie Russell Rowe escaped the bus after the killings, which led to a multi-state manhunt that ended with both being caught in Tennessee. A jury deliberated about 90 minutes on June 16 evening before convicting the culprit with a death sentence. The Putnam County jury announced, "We the jury, find the sentence of the defendant as follows: death signed the 16th day of June.”
In an interview by 13WMAZ, the family of the two officers conveyed their satisfaction after the verdict. The daughter of Christopher Monica, Zoey, said, "I’m extremely grateful for everybody involved in making this happen and getting justice for my dad. I'm just excited about getting to finally feel some sort of peace with everything.” Denise Billue, one of the family members of Curtis Billue, said, "The closure that the judicial system has brought to us has given us great hope because I know the next step is going to be healing. We know that we will never move on without Curt, but we will move forward.”
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Who were Ricky Dubose's victims?
Christopher Monica started working with the Department of Corrections in October 2009 as a correctional officer at Hancock State Prison. He transferred to Baldwin State Prison in February 2011. He is survived by his wife, two daughters, two grandchildren, and a sister.
On the other hand, Curtis Billue joined the Georgia Department of Corrections in July 2007 at the Frank Scott Correctional Facility. He later transferred to Georgia Diagnostic Classification Prison and then to Baldwin State Prison in October 2011. He is survived by his two sons, parents, and eight siblings.
What happened during the shooting?
On June 13, 2017, Rowe and Dubose, who was serving a 20-year sentence for a robbery and assault conviction, shot the officers using one of their guns while escaping from a prison transfer bus. The bus was headed to the high-security Department of Corrections facility near Jackson from Baldwin State Prison in Milledgeville. There were 33 prisoners on board as the shooting unfolded. Dubose shot the corrections officers in the head after he and Rowe managed to get out of the handcuffs and went through an unlocked gate near the front of the bus. Billue was driving at the time and Monica was asleep, Dubose later said as he narrated the incident.
Both of them fled the scene after carjacking the driver of a Honda that pulled up behind the idling bus. In a recorded interview, Dubose told investigators the attack on officers wasn’t planned and that they didn’t want to kill anyone. “It’s just something that happened spur of the moment,” the culprit said. They were captured days later in Tennessee.