In the early morning hours of June 13, 2017, Christopher Chris James Monica, a 42-year-old male sergeant with the Georgia Department of Corrections, was killed in Putnam County, Georgia. He and his colleague, Sergeant Curtis Billue, were transporting 33 inmates on a state prison bus along Route 16, between the towns of Eatonton and Sparta. The two officers were overpowered by two of the inmates, who had managed to get through an unlocked gate at the front of the bus.
The inmates,
identified as Ricky Dubose and Donnie Rowe, disarmed the officers. Dubose is said to have used one of the officer's handguns to shoot both Sergeant Monica and Sergeant Billue, killing them. Following the killings, Dubose and Rowe fled the scene, stealing the officers' service weapons and carjacking a nearby vehicle. Their escape triggered a large-scale manhunt that spanned multiple states.
A few days later, on June 15, 2017, the two fugitives were captured in Rutherford County, Tennessee. Their capture came after a vehicle pursuit during which they fired at deputies. They then attempted to steal another vehicle from a nearby home but were held at gunpoint by the homeowner and a neighbor until law enforcement arrived.
Both men were brought to trial for the murders of the two corrections officers. Donnie Rowe was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Ricky Dubose, the man accused of firing the fatal shots, was also convicted of murder and, in June 2022, was sentenced to death. Shortly after his sentencing, Dubose was found dead in his prison cell from an apparent suicide.
