A murderer who called himself a “serial killer” and once told the judge that he was “Michael Myers” will spend the rest of his life in prison for killing his pregnant girlfriend and her unborn child.
Judge Carolyn L. Addison of Shelby County Criminal Court said Thursday that Joshua Dotson would spend 102 years in prison in Tennessee for killing 19-year-old Jamesha Covson and her unborn child in 2020.
At the end of a three-day trial in August, the jury found Dotson guilty of two counts of first-degree murder for the shooting deaths.
While Dotson was on the stand defending himself, WHBQ reported that the jury only talked about the case for 45 minutes. Dotson had said that he was a “serial killer.”
“I am Michael Myers!” Dotson is said to have yelled during his testimony, where he also admitted to killing three more people.
It looked like the comment was about the made-up character with the same name who scared teens in the “Halloween” movie series.
Dotson was given 51 years in prison for each murder conviction by Addison. The sentences were to be served consecutively, which means one after the other.
It was said that Addison called Covson’s death “one of the saddest situations I’ve seen in my career” during the hearing.
Dotson was told by Addison, “You will never show remorse for the loss you’ve brought.” “The judge said it right.”
If you look at a probable cause affidavit from the Memphis Police Department, it says that Dotson and Covson got into a fight early in the morning on June 12, 2020, at her home in the 1200 block of Quinn Avenue in Memphis over “some post on Facebook.” At one point, Covson locked Dotson in a room and shut the door on him. Dotson then shot through the door.
Even though the first bullet didn’t hit Covson, Dotson broke into the room to keep arguing before leaving. Police say he came back a little while later and shot several times into Covson’s closed door, killing her and the child.
“A few hours later, police got a call about a shooting with one shot at [Covson’s address],” the affidavit says. Several gunshot wounds were found on Covson, who was found in the house. She was taken to the hospital, but her injuries killed her there.
The hospital doctors said she was about 5 to 6 months pregnant and that the baby had also died from the injuries.
Several witnesses told police that they saw Dotson with a gun during both shootings, and prosecutors called 10 witnesses to testify during the trial.
Authorities think that Dotson posted a memorial for Covson on his Facebook page just two hours after killing her, telling her to “Fly high.”
This was done on purpose to distance himself from the crime, according to a news release from the Shelby County District Attorney’s Office.
