In the late hours of a Tuesday night in Newport, Kentucky, 38-year-old David A. DePhillips was behind the wheel of his taxi, a space that served as both his livelihood and, at times, his home. A man who had faced struggles with addiction, he was driving his cab to make a living while staying with friends. On this particular night, a sequence of events would tragically bring his life to an end.
The incident unfolded as the result of a drug transaction that went fatally wrong, a deal
soured by the use of counterfeit money. Surveillance cameras in the area of 9th and Saratoga captured the chilling moments. A white Saturn pulled up, and a man emerged, approaching DePhillips's taxi. After a brief exchange, the man stepped back and fired a single shot. Inside the cab with DePhillips was a female passenger who would become a key witness but was unharmed in the attack.
Mortally wounded, DePhillips tried to drive away from the scene. His desperate attempt to flee ended a block and a half away, where he crashed into three parked cars and a tree in the 900 block of Washington Avenue. He was transported to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, where he succumbed to his injuries. The investigation that followed quickly shifted from a suspected robbery to a targeted killing.
Within a day, Newport Police made their first arrest, taking 20-year-old Justin Russell into custody and charging him with murder. An alert patrol officer had spotted the white Saturn from the surveillance footage, and a subsequent traffic stop revealed an unspent shell casing in the vehicle. A tip later led to the arrests of two more individuals: 19-year-old Alyssa Baker and 18-year-old Jarrett Annus. All three were charged with murder. Investigators determined that Russell was the shooter, Baker was the driver of the Saturn, and Annus was also involved in the planning of what was initially intended to be a robbery. The U.S. Secret Service was also brought into the investigation due to the involvement of counterfeit currency.
