Zane Sparling / oregonlive.com (TNS)
A Gresham man settled a $35,000 debt for the marijuana he was supposed to sell by killing the supplier — who also happened to be his friend — but investigators quickly unraveled the plot by tracing the gunman’s cellphone to and from the crime scene.
A Multnomah County Circuit Court jury deliberated for about 90 minutes Tuesday before convicting Alec Baldridge, now 26, of second-degree murder and unlawful use of a weapon in the Aug. 13, 2021, death of Dominic Jacoby.
Jacoby had fronted Baldridge dozens of pounds of marijuana and had planned to share the profits once Baldridge sold the pot on the black market, court records show.
Senior Deputy District Attorney Todd Jackson told the jury that Baldridge made multiple trips to Jacoby’s home in the early morning hours of the shooting, tried unsuccessfully to recruit an accomplice and then hid the murder weapon in a friend’s car.
“Mr. Baldridge didn’t just commit this murder — he planned it,” Jackson told the jury. “It was a planned ambush and execution.”
Jacoby, a Sam Barlow High School graduate and former standout football and basketball player who worked as a manager at L.A. Fitness, was three months shy of his 21st birthday when Baldridge shot him five times, twice in the chest. The two had been friends since high school.
At the time of the killing, Baldridge owed his friend $35,200 — though text messages between the two remained friendly, with Jacoby promising another loan once the current deal was finished.
“Drop moola off at my crib for me pls,” Jacoby texted Baldridge around 2 a.m. Aug. 13, less than two hours before the shooting.
Baldridge had indeed spent the hours hustling — but not to repay the debt, according to evidence exhibits and courtroom testimony. He sent Jacoby a picture of a stack of bills he purportedly netted in Eugene, even as cellphone location data showed Baldridge rooted at home at the Edison Apartments in Gresham, investigators said.
James Carr, a heroin addict with his own debts to settle, testified that he met Baldridge in a convenience store parking lot the evening before the shooting — and that Baldridge asked for help killing someone.
Carr demurred, and Baldridge angrily responded with: “I’ll guess I’ll have to take care of this myself,” according to Carr’s testimony.
Phone data showed Baldridge driving his girlfriend’s black Camry sedan toward Jacoby’s townhome on Southeast 15th Alley around 2:40 a.m. that Aug. 13, texting his girlfriend goodnight, making a 15-second video call with Jacoby and then turning off his phone just after 3 a.m.
Jacoby’s mother, Rachelle Amato, testified she was sleeping on the downstairs couch to avoid the hot summer air when the doorbell rang around 3:30 a.m., but when she opened the door no one was there.
Baldridge turned his phone back on around 3:43 a.m. and spoke by video call with Jacoby briefly again. Phone data showed him right outside Jacoby’s home. Six shots rang out three minutes later, with only one missing and hitting a neighbor’s garage. Amato rushed outside to find her son’s lifeless body clad in nothing but shorts and shoes.
“He had his whole life in front of him, and the evidence showed that Mr. Baldridge gunned him down and killed,” Jackson said.
Defense attorney John Gutbezahl asked jurors to ignore the “pinball show” of geolocation data pings and instead ask why Baldridge’s DNA wasn’t found on the murder weapon.
The gun was given to police by Trelyontae Wilson, who told investigators he had been hanging out with Baldridge after the killing when Baldridge asked if he could put a bag of marijuana in Wilson’s trunk. Wilson said he later found a gun, not pot, in his car.
Gutbezahl said prosecutors couldn’t explain how Baldridge got the gun in the first place. He noted that Jacoby had recently been threatened by a man who had been banned from his gym.
Jackson said the banned gym customer, Carr and Wilson all cooperated with the investigation and that phone data showed they were nowhere near the crime scene at the time.
Baldridge showed little emotion as the verdict was read by Circuit Judge Heidi Moawad, though his mother wiped away tears. He faces a mandatory lifetime prison sentence during a sentencing hearing July 12.
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