In the early morning hours of May 20, 2023, the life of 53-year-old Dawn Newbauer, a beloved mother and grandmother, was tragically cut short in the parking lot of the Retreat Village Shopping Plaza on St. Simons Island, Georgia. A female, Newbauer had just finished her shift at Nazzaro's Italian restaurant, where she had worked in the restaurant industry for 15 years in the Golden Isles. Her body was discovered slumped over the trunk of her car with two gunshot wounds to her head. The scene was described as particularly disturbing by her stepson, a police detective, who noted that she was missing clothing from the waist down.
The Glynn County Police Department swiftly launched an investigation into her death. Evidence found at the scene quickly led them to identify 50-year-old Ricky Easterling as a person of interest. It was later revealed that Newbauer and Easterling had been involved in an intimate relationship. Surveillance footage from a nearby business captured a vehicle leaving the scene shortly after gunshots were reported. A responding officer's dash-cam footage recorded the same car driving the wrong way in a traffic circle while leaving the island.
In a seemingly unrelated traffic stop shortly after, Brunswick Police pulled over a vehicle for a traffic violation. The driver was identified as Ricky Ricardo Easterling. Although he was cited and his vehicle was towed, officers at the time were unaware of his connection to the homicide. Investigators later tracked the towed vehicle to a hotel where they reviewed surveillance footage showing Easterling moving two bags from his truck to his girlfriend's car. After obtaining search warrants, police discovered a handgun and a shotgun in the bags. Ballistics testing confirmed that the handgun was the weapon used to kill Dawn Newbauer. Furthermore, Easterling's fingerprints were found inside her car, contradicting his statement to police that he had only spoken to her from his own vehicle.
Ricky Easterling was arrested and charged with multiple crimes, including felony murder. On July 1, 2024, Easterling pleaded guilty to malice murder, two counts of felony murder, and two counts of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. He was subsequently sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole. The quick actions of the Glynn County Police Department in identifying and apprehending the suspect brought a swift, though somber, conclusion to the investigation into the violent death of a woman remembered by her family as the life of every party and someone who would become a best friend after just a couple of hours.
