Cops: Duo staged marijuana deal, killed Macon man, tried to cover their tracks
When Trevorius Thomas was cut down by shotgun blasts outside a shack in the woods three months ago, he died clutching his cell phone.
It was the very phone, authorities say, that one of the young men charged with killing Thomas sent a text message to a couple of hours later. The text was meant to throw off investigators.
The message -- along with phone-transmission data, so-called “pings” from cell towers, and other evidence -- is part of a murder case Monroe County sheriff’s deputies have built against a pair of suspects in Thomas’ Jan. 27 death.
Allegations in an investigative summary obtained by The Telegraph contend that the suspects hatched a plan to ambush and rob Thomas after luring him to a phony drug deal they staged at an abandoned house northwest of Macon.
But whether suspects Stephen Lober and Kyle Dougherty stole any cash from the 21-year-old Thomas -- whom investigators believe was Lober’s crack-cocaine dealer -- is not known.
Lober, 20, and Dougherty, 21, had been friends since they were boys, before they became Eagle Scouts, and then in the years after they graduated from Rutland High in 2009.
They were deemed suspects after Thomas’ family reported him missing, telling police that his friends had told them Thomas was with Lober on Jan. 27. Before calling police, though, investigators say Thomas’ mother and father reached out to Lober and, later, Dougherty and all but begged the two to tell them where their son was.
Lober and Dougherty were arrested and charged with murder Jan. 31, four days after Thomas was slain, the day Dougherty led authorities to Thomas’ body at the shack on suburban Zebulon Road, southwest of Bolingbroke.
Dougherty cooperated with police and gave an account of the slaying, sheriff’s officials have said. They say Lober has denied involvement. Both suspects are locked up at the Monroe County jail, held without bond. It could be August before prosecutors seek indictments.
Thomas, an 11th-grade dropout who sometimes worked for his grandmother’s janitorial service, was living with friends in a trailer near Macon State College. Authorities believe Lober picked up Thomas there the day Thomas was shot.
Investigators say Lober had been in touch with Thomas “several times” the day before to buy crack and set up a deal the next day to sell Thomas a pound of marijuana -- which apparently never existed -- for $3,500.
“The brokered deal can be confirmed through text content,” investigators note in their report, adding that “it appeared Trevorius Thomas supplied Stephen Lober with drugs for his habit. The drug habit of Stephen Lober can be confirmed through his statement (to detectives) in which he stood up and proclaimed himself to be a crack addict.”
The investigators’ summary, copies of which were recently turned over to prosecutors and defense lawyers in the case, says that in one text message Lober sent to Thomas that Lober “seemed desperate for more (drugs), indicated by saying that he was hurting.”
Trip to Bass Pro
About 7 a.m. on Jan. 27, a Friday, Lober, who was living with his parents near Lizella, texted Dougherty and told him to come over.
Investigators say Dougherty, who lived with his folks off Sardis Church Road in south Bibb County, showed up in his red Jeep Cherokee, and they soon rode over to the Bass Pro Shops store along Interstate 75 to buy ammo: buckshot for a 12-gauge shotgun and bullets for a .22-caliber rifle.
“Lober and Dougherty entered the store almost right after it opened. ... Dougherty used a gift card to make the purchase. The gift card was (later) found in the Jeep during a search,” the investigators’ summary states. “(They) are together in the Bass Pro Shop video.”
Authorities say the pair then headed for the shack on Zebulon, a few miles northwest of the road’s intersection with I-475.
“They looked around and set up for the pending robbery. ... Lober left Dougherty at the old house ... (and) went to get Thomas,” the summary states. “Lober returned to Zebulon Road with Thomas at approximately 1:30 p.m.”
Investigators used cell-phone data from antennas in Bolingbroke and Lizella to try and pinpoint Lober’s whereabouts that afternoon. As Lober allegedly drove Thomas toward the house where Dougherty was said to be waiting, Lober’s phone “pinged” off the same cell tower as Dougherty’s, an antenna roughly five miles due south in Lizella.
“Between 1:20 and 2 p.m., Trevorius was murdered, ... shot in the back, still holding his cell phone. No evidence of a struggle or fleeing was at the scene, indicating that Thomas did not see it coming. Thomas’ pockets were empty with his pants pulled down to his ankles,” the investigators’ report states.
The summary goes on to note that “Lober shot Thomas with the shotgun” and that Lober had “visible marks to his wrist and hand, consistent with shooting a shotgun, loaded with buckshot. Dougherty did not have such marks. Lober was also identified as the shooter by Dougherty, during his interview.”
Investigators say the two suspects left Thomas’ body and rode to Lober’s house on the other side of Lake Tobesofkee, nine minutes away. Then they headed to Dougherty’s house, the report says, where they burned the clothes they’d worn and buried the bullets they’d bought.
“At 3:37 p.m., Lober texted Thomas’ phone asking why he didn’t show up to something,” the report states, “knowing that Thomas was left still holding his cell phone and (that) law enforcement would find it. Lober made no other phone calls or texts to Thomas’s phone; even after intense confrontation with Thomas’s family looking for Thomas.”
After the suspects burned their clothes, they hung out together and then, as evening approached, “they went their separate ways,” the report says.
“Dougherty kept a date in Americus Georgia with a girl, which he had met on the internet. He was happy about the date and bragged the next (day) about losing his virginity.”
This story was originally published May 3, 2012 at 5:13 PM with the headline "Cops: Duo staged marijuana deal, killed Macon man, tried to cover their tracks ."