Detective testifies defendant seen beating girlfriend

Jacksonville man charged with murder

A neighbor saw a 48-yearold Jacksonville man beat up his girlfriend about eight hours before police found the grievously injured woman, who died later that day, a detective testified Wednesday.

James Anthony Dokes of Jacksonville is charged with first-degree murder, accused of beating 45-year-old Vinolya Ann Myers to death in July.

Dokes was arrested about eight hours after the bleeding and bruised mother of two — known as Vino by friends and family — was found by police with Dokes’ sister and brother who had called an ambulance for her.

Dokes, who remained jailed Friday, was nowhere around at the time and had to be tracked down by investigators who traced his cellphone, Jacksonville detective Shawn Jones told Pulaski County Circuit Judge Leon Johnson.

Police found blood in the kitchen and living room of Dokes’ Pike Avenue home, along with bloody clothes in the bedroom, Jones said. The source of the blood remains unknown with test results pending, Jones said. The house was in disarray as if there had been a fight, and

there were obvious signs that someone had tried to clean up the gore, he testified.

Myers died from bluntforce trauma that caused bleeding in her brain and had suffered cuts, scrapes and bruises on her face and body, the detective said.

The neighbor told investigators that he saw Dokes punching a woman bloody and throwing her off his front porch then dragging her into his house the night before Myers died, Jones testified. That was about an hour after she was seen by friends at Galloway Park who described Myers as drunk but in good health.

After his arrest, Dokes told police that Myers had been injured in a fight at the park, and that the people she had fought with followed them home, although that version of events did not match statements taken from witnesses at the park, the detective told the judge. Myers drunkenly fell off his porch that night, Dokes said.

Dokes also told investigators that he and Myers had argued that night, and that Myers had grabbed him by the throat and Dokes had pushed her away, the detective said. Dokes denied harming her.

Dokes’ sister, Felecia Ann Dokes, 56, testified that her brother had called her to go to his home because he had an emergency. She told the judge that he brought Myers out of the house and put the woman in the car with her and their brother, Calvin Dokes, 52, to take to the hospital. She said James Dokes did not say what happened to Myers.

Felecia Dokes said she and Calvin Dokes had traveled about a block away before realizing that Myers was bleeding from her face and was seriously injured so they stopped and called an ambulance.

Public defender Lou Marczuk called on the judge to reduce James Dokes’ $500,000 bail to a more affordable $ 75,000. Marczuk told the judge that he’s planning to challenge the neighbor’s account with evidence that the witness might not have been able to see what he claims to have seen, noting that the neighbor did not step forward on his own but was discovered by police.

Senior deputy prosecutor Jeanna Sherrill called Dokes a flight risk who should be held under $1 million bail. The judge compromised by setting bail at $250,000.

Sherrill said Dokes has more than 15 misdemeanor convictions for failing to appear in court and is wanted for similar charges in Missouri, where he’s served jail time for two domestic violence convictions.

Dokes also has been to prison in Arkansas, where he has felony convictions for drug manufacturing, burglary and theft, plus a misdemeanor violation of an order of protection, the prosecutor told the judge.

Court records show that Dokes was sentenced to 12 years in prison after he was convicted in a trial for second-degree battery in July 1998 over accusations that he had forced his way into a female friend’s Jacksonville home, beat her up and molested her in July 1996.

Dokes maintained that the woman had invited him to spend the night and that he had only beaten and cut her with a knife to defend himself in a fight that the woman started. Jurors acquitted Dokes of first-degree sexual abuse.