JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A man accused of killing his 22-year-old girlfriend and dumping her body in 2015 was convicted Friday of second-degree murder.
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Courtney Lamar Davis was also convicted of tampering with evidence and abuse of a dead body after the jury deliberated for about two hours.
Davis will be sentenced April 10 and could get up to life in prison in the murder of his girlfriend, Brittany Foote (pictured).
Foote was last seen March 18, 2015. Davis was arrested March 26 of that year on a weapons charge and was later charged with Foote's murder after the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office spent a week searching the Trail Ridge Landfill in Maxville for evidence in her disappearance.
Police never found Foote's body, but believe she was murdered some time between March 18 and March 19.
JSO Assistant Chief Chris Butler said Davis' father called police March 26, 2015, to report that his son had visited him in Maryland and confessed to murdering his girlfriend. Detectives were then sent to 1117 West 23rd St. to investigate the possible murder, Butler said.
“The father was concerned with the information that he learned,” Butler said. “But he was also concerned that his son was suicidal at that time, so he telephoned the police.”
Butler said Davis agreed March 26 to go with police to be interviewed and then confessed to Foote's murder. Foote was living with Davis when she was last seen.
Detectives said a wooded field off Imeson Park Boulevard was a burn site where towing employees spotted Foote shortly after she went missing. Detectives found blood at the scene that matched Foote’s DNA.
Butler said detectives learned that Davis had bought items to dispose of Foote's body and that he had left her body in a dumpster on Dunn Avenue (pictured below). That information led police to search the landfill, but they were not able to find her remains.
“We were out there for seven days conducting operations for the victim in this case. All indications are that she's still out at the landfill,” Butler said.
Butler said the couple had been together about three years and had moved to Jacksonville together about eight months before the murder. He said Davis was known to be jealous.
“She had taken a job at a nightclub and she would come home at different times of the evening, not with any consistency, and he just became jealous of that,” Butler said.
Butler said the couple had a history of domestic arguments and fights, but none documented by Jacksonville police.
He said it's not clear when or how Foote was murdered, but police believe she was killed at the couple's home, where they found a large volume of blood.