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The Assassination of an Atlanta-Area Teenager Leads to His Killer's Controversial Claims of Mental Impairment
June 6, 1998
Louis Nava was sixteen years old in the summer of 1998, a member of the Dunwoody (Georgia) Takedown Club, captain of his Dunwoody High School wrestling team, and the second child and second of three sons in a family of four children. In addition to wrestling, he had a dedication to teaching and instructing children. On Saturday, June 6, he was only six days from turning seventeen.
The biggest news story in Dunwoody before the summer of 1998 was the F2 tornado that tore across the metro area in April. Although it struck DeKalb, Fulton, Gwinnett and Cobb Counties, the most severe damage was in Dunwoody, where its half-mile wide width and more than 150 mile-per-hour winds caused one fatality, ten injuries and over $100 million in damage. Hundreds of homes in the area had major damage with dozens that were destroyed.
Unlike Georgia's capitol city of Atlanta, located less than 20 miles south, Dunwoody typically had little violent crime. A former bedroom community, the growth of the metro Atlanta area and urban sprawl sent residents north and Dunwoody found its community and borders growing. New neighborhoods, with single-family residences, townhomes, condos and apartment buildings sprouted up, as did commercial businesses. Perimeter Mall, on busy Ashford-Dunwoody Road, and immediately off Interstate 285 and with a Marta train stop conveniently outside the mall, and its environs, was the largest of the commercial and retail spaces. Dunwoody Village, the city's oldest shopping area, remained on Mt. Vernon and Chamblee-Dunwoody Roads and it was soon joined by an area called the Mt. Vernon Shopping Center, further down Mt. Vernon, toward Dunwoody Club Drive, by the Dunwoody Country Club, and Jett Ferry Drive.
The Atlanta Pet Supply and Grooming was in the Mt. Vernon Shopping Center, a strip center which also housed banks, a Harris Teeter grocery store, a drug store, a jewelry store, and restaurants, among others. Seventeen-year-old Dakarai Sloley's family dog, Scotty, was being groomed at the Atlanta Pet Supply on that Saturday in June. Like Louis, Dakarai was also a student at Dunwoody High; he and Louis were best friends. Dakarai and his family were staying with his aunt after their home had sustained damage two months earlier during the tornado.
It was Dakarai's aunt who agreed to let her nephew and Louis, who was hanging out at the house, drive her white 1995 BMW 318i to the shopping center to pick up Scotty from the groomers. It was around 6 p.m. when the two boys left in the BMW.
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| Louis as a wrestler (photo source) |
Meanwhile, 20-year-old Riorechos Wilson, known as Rio, 20-year-old Eric Perkinson and Eric's two brothers, 18-year-old Cicero and 30-year-old Walter Jerome, known as Jerome, were hanging out together that Saturday at their family home in Cartersville, the county seat of Bartow County and nearly 45 miles northwest of Dunwoody. Around noon, the quartet decided to head to a flea market in Stone Mountain but not before they talked about stealing a vehicle. Their vehicle of choice was a BMW, as they felt it would garner them the most money. In fact, on Friday Eric and Rico had talking about hijacking a car should one become available so that Rico could use the money to pay off a debt. A .9 millimeter pistol was acquired for that purpose.
The four left in Cicero's green Toyota Camry, armed with the pistol. They traveled to Stone Mountain to the flea market before heading into Dunwoody, a relatively affluent community with no shortages of BMWs. It was around 6 p.m. when they finished eating and spied exactly what they were looking for: a white BMW.
Dakarai and Louis had been told that the Sloley dog was not ready to be picked up and so they decided to head back to the car and sit and wait for the half hour or so until the dog was ready. Neither would have been concerned or worried about doing so; it was early evening, still light, on a Saturday evening in Dunwoody. There was both vehicle and foot traffic not only in the Mt. Vernon Shopping Center but the Williamsburg Shopping Center, a busy center with banks, a McDonald's, an Arby's, and a Dominos Pizza, among others, directly across the street. Certainly neither boy would have noticed the green Toyota scoping them out as they had pulled into the parking lot, gotten out, walked into the store and then returned.
Cicero, seeing Dakarai and Louis exit the BMW, commented that they were "two suckers" and pulled the Toyota into the parking space behind the white car and waited.
As Dakarai and Louis climbed back to the BMW, Eric and Rico climbed from the Toyota to the back seat of the BMW. Eric had the pistol and after robbing the two boys of the few dollars they had, he pointed it at the front seat, instructing Dakarai, who was behind the wheel, to follow the Toyota being driven by Cicero.
The Toyota left the shopping center, pulling onto Mt. Vernon Road and then taking a left on Tilly Mill Road before turning onto North Peachtree Road, the BMW following. The two-car caravan pulled into the parking lot of St. Barnabas Anglican Church, with the Toyota parked a few spaces from the BMW. Dakarai and Louis were told if they tried to run, they would be shot. The keys to the car were taken from Dakarai by Eric, who ordered him into the front passenger seat and Louis into the trunk. Rico took over the driving duties of the BMW, while Eric sat in the back seat.
Rico steered the car to the Interstate 285 on-ramp at North Peachtree and headed west, with the green Toyota carrying Jerome and Cicero following. Despite having just committed armed robbery and kidnapping, the two vehicles played a game of racing and passing each other on the freeway. Eric noticed a pair of black gloves that Dakarai had and forced the teen to turn them over to him.
As the two cars headed toward the 75 northbound freeway, Dakarai attempted to communicate with his captors. He told Rico and Eric that the car belonged to his aunt and if they wanted it, they could have it. He begged them not to kill him and Louis. Rico reassured Dakarai that neither he nor Louis would come to any harm; they would be let out but it had to be far from Dunwoody. Eric added that while Dakarai was "a brother" like them and might be trustworthy, Louis was not.
The terrifying drive lasted 45 minutes, during which Dakarai noted the license plate of the Toyota during one of the occasions it passed the BMW as Rico and Eric laughed and smoked cigars. He also recognized that they were passing over Lake Allatoona. Dakarai's fear that their abductors would kill him and Louis and throw them into the lake only lessened as they drove further north.
Nearly 40 miles from the Dunwoody shopping center where the carjacking had taken place, the cars exited on Paga Mine Road in Bartow County, where two-lane country roads dotted the landscape. The cars wound down a dirt road, seemingly at random but the Perkinson brothers were familiar with the area. Cicero had taken Rico there a few weeks earlier.
The BMW pulled to a stop and the Toyota followed suit, staying a car length or so behind. Eric pulled Louis from the trunk and told him to take off his shirt and shoes. Louis asked why and Eric put the pistol to his head and demanded he follow directions, which the teen did. Dakarai, still sitting in the passenger seat of the BMW, watched as Eric, holding the pistol to Louis' head, began marching him off to a wooded area with trees and bushes. Rico walked over to the Toyota and told Cicero, after Cicero rolled down his window, that Eric had freaked out. After that very brief exchange, Rico returned to the BMW to resume his watch over Dakarai, who was still observing his best friend and praying that he would be let go or simply left.
Eric, meanwhile, had stopped Louis and aimed the gun at him. Louis turned his head away from the gun and Eric pulled the trigger twice. Dakarai saw Louis fall, dead from a gunshot to his head.
Dakarai was frozen with fear and in shock. Eric returned to the BMW and through the open passenger-side window, put the gun to Dakarai's head. "Get out of the car," he said. "It's your turn." "No," said the teenager. "I thought you weren't going to kill us." Eric told him that he noticed Dakarai had seen the license plate of the Toyota and he had seen all their faces, before impatiently telling him to hurry up. Dakarai climbed out of the car and Eric, with one hand on his back and the other holding the gun against his head, began to walk him into the woods where Louis lay. Looking at his friend's body and figuring he only had one option to attempt to save himself, Dakarai made a break for it and took off running. Eric opened fire. Dakarai heard the gunshots and felt a sharp pain in his left arm. He squatted down by a tree, where he noticed that he had been shot in the arm. His abductors, seeing him go down and assuming he had been fatally struck, climbed into both cars and left. Only after both vehicles had left did Dakarai get up and run through the woods and grass and over a barbed-wire fence, all the while holding his injured arm (which would later reveal to be a bone completely bisected and shattered by a bullet). He came to a road where he saw a Domino's Pizza delivery driver. He flagged the driver down and the driver told Dakarai to wait where he was while the driver went to a nearby house to summon help.
Sheriff's deputies, along with paramedics, arrived within minutes. Dakarai was able to give descriptions of all four of his abductors, as well as the green Toyota, the white BMW and the license plates of both.
Around 8 p.m., a man observed a car that appeared to be a green Toyota Corolla with three individuals in it and a small fire burning nearby. He called the police and put the fire out. In the ashes were papers for and from the Sloley BMW. The Perkinsons and Rico Wilson, after leaving Bartow County, had returned to the Perkinson residence before traveling to Rome, Georgia for a party. They drove both the Toyota and the BMW and the BMW was spotted at a motel in Rome where Cicero Perkinson was seen. At some point, Cicero and Rico drove the BMW to the home of Eric's girlfriend, where it was recovered by the police. Once recovered, Cicero's fingerprints were found on the car and the gun used to kill Louis and to shoot Dakarai was found on the floorboard.
Back in Dunwoody, Louis' mother Laura had grown concerned over why Louis had not returned home. She drove to the Sloley house and not knowing that the boys had left in the white BMW, saw Dakarai's car in the driveway and assumed Louis was safely inside, still visiting with his friend. Her relief would last only until around 2 a.m., when police arrived to inform the family that Louis had been murdered.
For Dunwoody residents, the carjacking was bad enough but the kidnapping of the high schoolers and the murder of Louis Nava left them feeling terrorized and grief-stricken. The only consolation was that the perpetrators had been identified and taken into custody very quickly.
In Custody
With Dakarai's identification of the Perkinson brothers and Rico Wilson, as well as the recovery of the BMW, on August 7, 1998, two months and one day after the crime, a Bartow County grand jury indicted Eric Perkinson, Cicero Perkinson, Jerome Perkinson and Rico Wilson for malice murder, three counts of felony murder, aggravated battery, two counts of aggravated assault, two counts of false imprisonment, theft by taking, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime.
Initially, all four defendants were to be tried together. It was during pretrial hearings that the cases were severed. Before his trial, Eric Perkinson, the accused triggerman, attempted to get a change of venue (denied) due to the pretrial publicity. Following the State's pretrial discovery of Perkinson's school records, his attorneys retained a psychologist to test and evaluate Perkinson for a potential mental retardation claim. On July 28, 1999, he filed notice of his intent to raise mental retardation. The State retained its own psychologist, who concurred with Perkinson's psychologist that he was mildly mentally retarded. A plea bargain was then put on the table in which Perkinson would plead guilty but mentally retarded but he rejected the deal.
After an eight-day continuation, Perkinson went to trial on August 9, 1999. The jury was not swayed by his defense of mental retardation and after Dakarai Sloley recounted the terrifying day of June 6, 1998 and identified Eric Perkinson from the witness stand, they found Perkinson guilty on all counts on August 27. They deliberated for an hour and 40 minutes. The following day, the jury recommended that Perkinson be sentenced to death for his crimes.
During the penalty phase, Perkinson again presented evidence that he was mentally retarded, including reports that he had done very poorly in school and IQ tests that indicated he scored lower than 70, generally the benchmark of significantly subaverage intellectual functioning. The State countered by presenting evidence that Perkinson had scored above 70 on two separate IQ tests and that his poor school performance was more related to disruptive behavior than an actual impairment. (The argument was incredibly important as in the state of Georgia, a guilty but mentally retarded individual cannot be sentenced to death.)
Given the options of the death penalty, life without parole or life, Perkinson was sentenced to death for the malice murder of Louis Nava. For his remaining convictions, he received consecutive sentences totaling 60 years.
Cicero Perkinson, Jerome Perkinson, and Rico Wilson all had their day in court and all were found guilty.
Post-Convictions
Following his trial and sentencing in Bartow County, the DeKalb County (the county where Louis and Dakarai were robbed and abducted) grand jury indicted Eric Perkinson for two counts of kidnapping with bodily injury, two counts of armed robbery, possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Perkinson filed a plea claiming double jeopardy as Bartow County had already convicted him on charges of kidnapping and false imprisonment. The firearm possession charges were dismissed and the Georgia Supreme Court in 2001 ruled that the State could not prosecute Perkinson for the charges in DeKalb County.
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| Cicero Perkinson, Inmate 0001040413 (photo source) |
After his conviction, Cicero Perkinson filed a motion for new trial in February of 2000; that motion was denied in October of that same year. He appealed in November, claiming that the State failed to show he intended to or even participated in the crimes he was convicted of and that he had merely been present and at worst, he was an accessory after the fact. In May of 2001, the Supreme Court found that he had indeed been a willing participant in the carjacking of the BMW and the other felonies, resulting in the murder of Louis Nava and the shooting of Dakarai Sloley. They further opined that Cicero had been part of the initial plan to steal a BMW, had been the individual to select Louis and Dakarai as victims, aided in stealing the BMW and abducting the teens, and enjoyed the fruits of the crimes. His sentences of life imprisonment, twenty years for aggravated assault, ten years for each count of false imprisonment, ten years for theft by taking, and five years for possession of a firearm stand. To date, he remains incarcerated at Hancock State Prison in Sparta, Georgia.
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| Jerome Perkinson, Inmate 0000685262 (photo source) |
Walter Jerome Perkinson, who had two prior convictions in 1991 and 1995 for cocaine possession, was sentenced to a total of 30 years for his role in connection with the abduction, assault and murder. He is scheduled to be released in 2028. He is currently incarcerated at the Augusta State Medical Prison in Grovetown, Georgia.
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| Riorechos Wilson, Inmate 0000944037 (photo source) |
Riorechos (Rio) Wilson, the man whose idea it was to steal a BMW to pay off a debt, is serving his life sentence at the Coffee Correctional Facility in Nicholls, Georgia.
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| Eric Perkinson, Inmate 0000919671 (photo source) |
Eric Perkinson too filed a motion for new trial, on September 15, 1999. That motion was amended in March of 2001, the same month of which it was denied. The following month, April of 2001, Perkinson filed a notice of appeal. In his appeal, he claimed that the trial court erred in refusing to change venue, in permitting the pretrial discovery of Perkinson's school records, in granting the continuance without Perkinson himself present, in allowing the State to introduce a videotape that depicted the church parking lot, the interior of the BMW's trunk and the area of Paga Mine Road where Louis Nava was murdered (all filmed from the perspective of Louis), and in its charge to the jury. Perkinson also claimed ineffectiveness of counsel, although one of the attorneys continued to represent him during the appeal process.
Perkinson's appeal was orally argued on October 12, 2004 and it was denied on March 14, 2005. A rehearing was denied on April 14, 2005.
On July 14, 2005, Perkinson filed a petition for writ of certiorari, which was denied on October 3. On November 15, 2005, Perkinson filed a petition for rehearing, which was denied on December 12.
On June 10, 2015, Perkinson filed a habeas petition in Federal District Court. In his petition, Perkinson again cited ineffectiveness of counsel, both trial and appellate. Perkinson's appointed trial attorney, Christopher Paul, had no experience with death penalty cases at the time he was appointed. More troubling was attorney Alan Medof, whom Perkinson's mother hired. Medof was a Florida criminal lawyer who had practiced briefly in Georgia during the 1980s. Like Paul, Medof had no death penalty experience and further, had never tried a murder case. Two years before Perkinson's trial, during which he had admitted he had fallen asleep, Medof had been suspended by the Florida State Bar for his crack cocaine addiction. Although he was reinstated after completing a rehabilitation program, he lied when he filed his motion to appear pro hac vice and stated that he had never been reprimanded by a court. Medof also missed a pretrial hearing, was not prepared by the start of trial and during the trial was arrested for soliciting a prostitute.
Perkinson also brought up the issue of mental retardation, claiming that his counsel only had ten days before the start of trial to prepare his mental retardation defense, of which they had no experience.
In January of 2019, District Judge Amy Totenberg found in Perkinson's favor and concluded that his counsel was ineffective, that had the 1999 jury had all the evidence from social workers and former teachers, they would have found him intellectually disabled and that a death sentence was excessive due to his cognitive defects. In so finding, Eric Perkinson's death sentence was overturned. As of the time of this writing, a new trial date has yet to be set.
Perkinson remains incarcerated at Telfair State Prison in Helena, Georgia.
Louis Nava's classmates, in the wake of his murder, created the Louis Nava Memorial Garden at Dunwoody High School. It was officially dedicated in May of 1999.
In 2008, the Nava/Breffle Wrestling Club was established in Dunwoody. Named for Louis and for Dunwoody High student Doug Breffle, who had died in 2002 following a car accident, the Club teaches wrestling to children aged 6 to 14.
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| Louis' final resting place (photo source) |
Sources:
The Atlanta Journal Constitution (02/05/19), Judge Throws Out Death Sentence Involving Dunwoody Teen.
CBS46 (2019). Dunwoody Family Angry After Federal Judge Overthrows Death Sentence of Son's Murderer.
Find a Grave (2021). Louis G. Nava.
Georgia Department of Corrections (2021).
Perkinson v. Chatman, USDC No. 4:15-CV-0101-AT (2019).
Perkinson v. State, 542 S.E.2d 92 (2001).
Perkinson v. State, 610 S.E.2d 533 (2005)
Perkinson v. State, 279 Ga. 232.
