READERS: Understand -- this comes from the perspective of a juror. I did NOT sentence the man. I could not because I was an alternate. A jury can only pronouce a sentence based on what's laid out to them in a trial ... and even Higgs own lawyers presented him basically as guilty. This was written directly after the trial completed.

I cry for you, Dustin John Higgs.  

I was an alternate juror during your federal kidnapping and murder trial in the state of Maryland. By the time this prints, you’ll have been sentenced for ordering the shooting deaths of Tamika Black, Mishann Chinn, and Tanji Jackson in the early morning hours of January 27, 1996.

I felt nothing for you for most of your trial. You sat in the courtroom, looking like a young Eddie Murphy—intelligent and attentive—head held high, eyes facing forward, emotionless, as if being accused of these senseless crimes was pure folly. You seemed to dare the jury to find you guilty. Yet, whether or not you actually pulled the trigger on that cold, dark January morning, you were tried for the crime.

  You couldn’t possibly have thought past your rage in that one split-second decision to order those murders. The moment you allegedly took a gun from your living room end table and walked out your door, you were responsible for the events of the following hours. Victor Gloria and Willis Haines saw you as their leader. They climbed into your dark blue Mazda MPV and went with you to pluck those three women from the side of Maryland Route 197, and you drove them all to their eternity.  

            The young ladies didn’t need to die that way. They didn’t need to die at all at that moment. How long had you known Ms. Tanji Jackson? Did you think she was pretty? Sexy? Did you ever have a “pure” moment with her when you enjoyed her sense of humor, her intelligence ... or just thought of how nice it was when she smiled at you? Why was she angry with you that night? What did she know about you that you didn’t want her to expose? Had she learned of your drug connections? How could you order the cold-blooded murder of a woman whose only likely crime was to find you attractive? I want to understand. Since the moment I was added to your trial jury, I was forced to become involved. Now I need answers.

While I do grieve for the useless deaths of Tanji, Tamika, and Mishann, three young women I came to know through photos and loving family stories, with lives that looked to hold so much promise, I believe they’re okay now. I know they no longer feel pain and unhappiness, nor are their hearts heavy. Their backgrounds as presented convinced me that no matter what detours they may or may not have made, they had been walking a path with their Lord then, and I’m confident that they’re with Him now.

You are the one I must cry for now, Dustin. You’re left behind to remember that early morning, over and over; to have regrets—hopefully; to feel remorse so intense that it eats at you, keeping you awake at night. Every night. 

You’re the one who makes me sad. For most of your trial, I wanted to believe you’d “gone wrong” early, had for years lived as a criminal. I desperately wanted to think you came from a home that encouraged such a lifestyle. If I could hold on to that opinion, I could feel very little for you and almost understand why you moved from a world of bloodless illegal activity, to outright murder.

I want you to know that in my personal trial notes, I did not use your Christian name until your family took the stand. Before that, I identified you only as “Higgs.” By not calling you by your first name, I could continue to see you as a heartless punk, a kid-gone-horribly-bad. Nothing more.

I’d hoped to be able to feel more for you. I was angry with your defense team for not giving me a reason to do so, and found myself screaming in my head, “This is a man’s life! Tell me why I should believe he’s not guilty!” I wanted a chance to understand what made you so cold and calculated.

But it was already too late. Even your attorney bluntly proclaimed that he and his partner believed they’d be back in front of us for your sentencing. They acted as if they knew, before they began, that you were guilty, so why should the jury feel any different?

Based on the overall case they presented, I continued to identify you as only “Higgs,” a heartless, rotten-at-the-core murderer, a man who probably hadn’t had a chance from the time he was born.

Wrong! You may, or may not, have long been cold and heartless, but you’d had a chance. You’d had many chances. Only at the end, as your family members took the witness stand, did I find in you a brief shadow of humanity. Finally, when your cousins, raised with you as “brother and sister,” came before us, I saw a glimpse of a young man named Dustin John Higgs ... not just “Higgs” or “Bones,” as friends on the street called you. You finally became more to me than just the convicted criminal on the other side of the room. 

And when your aunt, your surrogate mother, took the stand, my tears were real. I was forced to feel for you. I could no longer not mourn for Dustin—the little boy, so dearly loved by his adored natural mother, and abandoned at birth by a father who lived a questionable lifestyle. I mourned for Dustin—the young adolescent, forced to stand by, helpless, and watch his mother die of cancer. I mourned for Dustin—the older adolescent who, though nurtured and cared for by many extended family members—cousins, aunts, uncles who called him their own—still was unable to forget a hurt etched on his soul apparently from the loss of his natural parents.

Finally, I mourned for Dustin—the young man who seemed destined to be unhappy, destined to hurt others because of the hurt he held inside ... no matter how much genuine love surrounded him. 

Keep in mind, Dustin, I listened to the stories of

you as a gentle, caring young man concerned for

family and friends. I took special note of how

you yearned for a good life for your own young

son, and I could easily believe that. By the end

of your trial, I had a mental picture that, maybe

through self-fulfilling prophecy, you felt

destined to follow in your absent father’s

footsteps. It was as if you believed there was

something inside you that would never allow

you to properly nurture your child, and that

made you sad. 

  But all of this was too little, too late. Here we are now, and you must face up to what happened. Help me to dry my tears for you, Dustin. Have your life stand for something positive. Whether you have one day left, or one day plus many years, don’t die without making peace with your past. Give your son something to be proud of in his Daddy. Despite this crime, Dustin John Higgs, it’s not too late to make something positive out of your final legacy. 

Cry for yourself, Dustin. More importantly, cry for all the lives, so very many, that will never ever again be the same.