On a Friday morning in Danville, Virginia, September 30, 2016, the life of Mark Anthony Graves, a 47-year-old Black / African American male, was tragically cut short. Responding to a call of shots fired at approximately 10 a.m., police arrived at a residence in the 1300 block of Aspen Street to a grim scene. Inside the house, they discovered Graves suffering from a gunshot wound.
He was pronounced dead at the scene, and his body was subsequently sent to the medical examiner's office for an autopsy.
For nearly four years, the investigation into Graves' death continued, a persistent effort by detectives to bring justice for his killing. The case remained active, with law enforcement following leads and working in close collaboration with the Commonwealth's Attorney's Office. A significant breakthrough finally came in June 2020. A Danville grand jury returned indictments against two local men, Tony Wayne Mayo Jr., then 24, and Devin Lamont Womack, then 28. Authorities stated that the act was not random and that the two men had a connection with Graves.
Both Mayo and Womack were charged with first-degree murder, robbery, and two counts of using a firearm in the commission of a felony. Following the indictments, Womack was held in the Danville City Jail, while Mayo was detained in the Martinsville City Jail, both without bond. The arrests marked a long-awaited development in the four-year-old homicide case.
In November 2021, Devin Lamont Womack faced a two-day jury trial in Danville Circuit Court. The prosecution argued that Womack and two other men were involved in the fatal shooting of Graves, which allegedly stemmed from an argument over a pack of cigarettes inside what was described as a "drug house." The defense attorney countered by questioning the credibility of the prosecution's witnesses, referring to them as "a bunch of liars" who knew Graves was a drug dealer. After nearly three hours of deliberation, the jury acquitted Womack on all charges, including first-degree murder, armed robbery, and the firearm counts. He was subsequently released from custody. The final legal outcome for the second suspect, Tony Wayne Mayo Jr., is not detailed in available online sources.
