#Dustin john higgs driver#

Had Higgs been tried in Maryland, a circumstance that would have arisen had he pulled the car over in a different location, he would not have been subject to the death penalty. Higgs was convicted and sentenced to death on October 26, 2000.

#Dustin john higgs driver#

In his defense, Higgs argued that he was merely the driver and that the killings were initiated by Haynes in retaliation for a drug debt the victims had not paid. At trial, prosecutors argued that Higgs was the ringleader of the killings, having pressed Haynes into pulling the trigger after Jackson refused his sexual advances. Federal authority was asserted due to the location of the murders on federal property. He and Higgs were charged with the murders of the three women in December 1998. Questioning led to information related to the murders which led to Haynes’ arrest. In October 1998, Haynes and Gloria were arrested on separate drug charges. He was sentenced to seventeen years in federal prison on cocaine distribution charges. Evidence at the scene pointed toward Higgs, who was questioned in March and arrested when drugs were found in his apartment. The women’s bodies were discovered the next day. Higgs then drove to Patuxent, where the women were killed. They found the women walking and picked them up, apparently cordially, with a plan to drive them home. The three men followed, with Higgs driving. The previous evening, Higgs, Haynes, and Gloria, had spent time with the three female victims in Higgs’ Laurel, Maryland, apartment until an argument led the women to leave.

The murders occurred near the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, on the Patuxent Research Refuge in Maryland. Early in the morning on January 27, 1996, Dustin John Higgs and Victor Gloria waited in the car while Willis Mark Haynes shot and killed Tamika Black, Tanji Jackson, and Mishann Chinn.