Ryan Keith Mumaw, a 21-year-old White male from Charles Town, West Virginia, was killed on July 19, 2016, after what began as an arranged marijuana transaction became a planned robbery in the Tuscawilla Hills subdivision. Mumaw had graduated from Washington High School in 2013 and was attending West Virginia University, where he studied business and was preparing to enter his senior year.
He had played baseball and golf in high school, remained an avid golfer, and worked at Locust Hill Golf Course. On the afternoon of his death, Ryan was with his brother Dylan when they agreed to meet a group that purportedly wanted to purchase a pound of marijuana.
The meeting had been arranged through Braden Fitzgerald, who knew the Mumaw brothers as marijuana sources. Fitzgerald later testified that Rakeem Deqwan Newman, Malakye Emerson Boyd and Tayjuhn Coble were with him at a Charles Town residence when Newman asked about obtaining a pound of marijuana. Fitzgerald contacted Ryan and Dylan, and a series of text messages resulted in a meeting being arranged in the Tuscawilla Hills area. Evidence presented later indicated that the supposed purchase was a pretext. Fitzgerald testified that before they left, Newman proposed stealing the marijuana rather than paying for it, and prosecutors maintained that the group intended to rob the brothers. Reporting on the case placed the proposed price of the pound at approximately $3,200.
The Mumaw brothers were in a Toyota 4Runner when the other group arrived in a Ford Focus. According to the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals’ later account of the evidence, the Ford eventually pulled alongside the 4Runner on a public street near a park. Two armed passengers got out and moved to opposite sides of the Mumaw vehicle, pointing guns at the occupants. Dylan, who was driving, attempted to accelerate away. The person positioned beside the passenger side opened fire and continued shooting as the 4Runner fled. Ryan, seated on the passenger side, was struck in the chest. Dylan pulled to the side of the road after realizing his brother had been hit. Good Samaritans stopped to assist and called paramedics, but Ryan died before Dylan reached the hospital to meet him.
Fitzgerald later testified that he remained in the driver’s seat during the confrontation and heard approximately three gunshots. He said Newman had gotten out of the front passenger seat and that another participant also left the Ford. Fitzgerald initially identified Coble as that second person but later told investigators he had reconsidered his memory and believed Boyd was the second person who got out. Fitzgerald said he saw Newman through his mirrors standing amid smoke after the shots but did not actually see a firearm being discharged. Afterward, he drove away with Newman, Boyd and Coble, eventually dropping some of them off in Charles Town. Fitzgerald testified that Newman and Coble warned him not to talk about what had happened. When Fitzgerald later learned police were looking for him, an officer contacted him and asked him to turn himself in. He was stopped and arrested while driving toward the Charles Town Police Department.
Investigators were quickly able to trace the Ford’s driver through an eyewitness, and the investigation led authorities to the other participants. Rakeem Newman and Tayjuhn Coble were charged early in the case. Malakye Boyd, who had been interviewed during the initial investigation but declined to provide a statement, was arraigned on a first-degree murder charge on August 10, 2016. Jefferson County Sheriff Pete Dougherty said investigators believed Boyd had been the second person who exited the vehicle with Newman and said authorities considered Newman the gunman. The later appellate record was more cautious about the identity of the person who fired the fatal shot because the shooter’s face was concealed. Under the felony-murder theory ultimately used at trial, prosecutors did not have to prove that each participant personally fired the weapon; participation in the underlying robbery that resulted in Ryan’s death was sufficient.
The case eventually involved four defendants. A grand jury indicted Newman, Boyd and Coble in January 2017 on charges arising from the robbery and killing. Fitzgerald, who had been a juvenile when the shooting occurred, was indicted later, in April 2017, on murder and related charges. Prosecutors alleged that the defendants arranged the meeting under the guise of purchasing the marijuana while planning instead to take it by force. Fitzgerald eventually reached an agreement with prosecutors. In July 2017 he pleaded guilty to first-degree armed robbery; the first-degree murder and conspiracy charges against him were dropped as part of the deal, and he agreed to testify against the remaining defendants. He later received a determinate 20-year prison sentence.
Coble also resolved his case without going through the joint murder trial. He pleaded no contest to first-degree robbery in exchange for his cooperation with prosecutors and testified concerning the robbery plan. Although Coble maintained that he had not expected anyone to be killed, the prosecution argued that he had numerous opportunities to withdraw from the scheme. In October 2017, Circuit Judge Debra McLaughlin sentenced him to 15 years in prison, the maximum term contemplated by the plea arrangement. At the sentencing hearing, Coble apologized to the Mumaw family and said he wished he could go back and prevent the shooting. He was described at the time as potentially becoming eligible for parole after serving roughly seven and a half years.
Newman and Boyd proceeded to a joint jury trial in Jefferson County Circuit Court in August 2017. Fitzgerald and Coble testified for the prosecution. The juvenile driver’s testimony, as described in the appellate decisions, indicated that Newman had proposed turning the anticipated marijuana purchase into a robbery and that Boyd had agreed to participate. Coble testified that Newman and Boyd were the two people who concealed their faces and confronted the Mumaw brothers when the vehicles stopped. The jury found Newman and Boyd guilty of first-degree felony murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree robbery.
At sentencing in October 2017, Newman received life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for the felony murder, along with a consecutive five-year term for the conspiracy conviction. Boyd received life imprisonment with mercy, making him eligible to seek parole after the required minimum period, and he also received a consecutive five-year sentence for conspiracy. Contemporary reporting described Newman as the gunman, while the later Supreme Court decision acknowledged that the masked person who actually discharged the fatal weapon had never been definitively identified. Newman’s felony-murder responsibility nevertheless rested on evidence that he proposed the robbery and took part in the armed confrontation, rather than solely on proof that he personally fired the fatal round.
Both Newman and Boyd appealed their convictions to the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia. Newman challenged the sufficiency of the evidence and argued, among other things, that witnesses who testified against him had received favorable plea agreements and that he had not knowingly joined a robbery plan. The court found that testimony from Coble and the juvenile participant supported the jury’s conclusion that Newman proposed the robbery and was one of the two people who exited the Ford to confront the Mumaws at gunpoint. Boyd likewise argued that the evidence did not prove he personally participated in the shooting, but the court explained that a felony-murder conviction did not require proof that Boyd himself fired the weapon. Evidence that he knowingly participated in the robbery that resulted in Ryan’s death was enough. On June 7, 2019, the Supreme Court of Appeals affirmed both men’s convictions and sentences, leaving Newman’s life-without-parole sentence and Boyd’s life-with-parole sentence in place.
