A cheating husband and his girlfriend had received life sentences for killing the man’s young wife. Prosecutors say the couple plotted the murder and drove more than nine hours to carry it out.
They wanted the victim out of the picture so they could be together and she died as she begged for mercy in the middle of a Montgomery, Alabama neighborhood.
Dominique Atkinson pleaded guilty to murder in 2016 in connection with the 2013 shooting death of 20-year-old Ashley McCarthy.
Marine Corps veteran Marquis Cheatham, the victim’s husband and Atkinson’s boyfriend, previously pleaded guilty to murder in the case on March 10, 2016.
Dominique Atkinson and Marquis Cheatham were sentenced to life in prison.
Cheatham was an active duty Marine stationed at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina at the time of the crime. Ashley McCarthy, his wife, stayed behind in their hometown of Montgomery and was living with her father as her husband started dating Dominique Atkinson in North Carolina.
When Ashley began to call Cheatham’s commanders to discuss finances and seek support from her husband, they put pressure on Cheatham to work things out and help take care of her.
On March, 27, 2013, after Ashley called to speak to members of his chain of command, prosecutors say Cheatham and Atkinson developed a plan to kill her. Ashley had no idea that her husband had a new girlfriend.
Marquis Cheatham and Ashley McCarthy grew up together in Montgomery and had known each other since grade school. They eloped in 2011.
On Easter weekend in 2013, Cheatham and Atkinson drove from North Carolina to Montgomery.
Cheatham called his wife and asked her to meet him near the airport on March 31, 2016. After going to eat at the Waffle House, Cheatham told the court he was discussing things with Ashley and they got into an argument. He pulled a gun on her on the drive over to his mother’s house on North Pass Road in North Montgomery. Dominique met them there and they forced Ashley into the trunk of Cheatham’s car.
They left and hid Ashley’s car in an abandoned shed on Lower Wetumpka Road. As Cheatham and Atkinson drove off with Ashley in the trunk, the trunk popped open when Ashley pulled the safety release latch from the inside. She jumped out and started running away and Cheatham began to chase her and shoot at her. Residents in the area reported hearing gunshots and a woman pleading for her life. Five shell casings were recovered.
Ashley was shot twice in the back as she was running away and then in the head, which was a contact wound, meaning that the gun was placed directly against her head.
Her body was left on the steps of a home on Lower Wetumpka Road.
Cheatham and Atkinson drove off, went back to his mother’s house to pick up some clothes, stopped in Georgia to get cleaning supplies to clean the car and went back to Camp Lejeune.
They were later arrested and extradited to Alabama to face their murder charges.
Their guilty pleas three years after the crime brought to close a dark chapter for Ashley McCarthy’s family. Her father, Freddie, thought Marquis Cheatham was someone who loved his daughter.
“I had known him for years and just never expected this. I know she never expected this or thought this would happen to her,” he said.
Ashley liked to volunteer at local nursing homes and traveled to other states to help feed the homeless. Her death has been very hard on her relatives.
McCarthy praised the work of prosecutors and police on the case.
As far as the motive in Ashley’s murder, her father thinks the couple was after life insurance.
Prosecutors say Cheatham felt that Ashley was messing with his military career and thought that she might not sign divorce papers so that he could be with Dominique Atkinson.
“Just another senseless killing. There was no need to do this. If he didn’t want to be with her, get a divorce and move on. But rather they chose this option and murdered a totally innocent woman who loved him. I truly believe that,” said Deputy District Attorney Kenney Gibbs, who handled the case.
Gibbs indicated that Dominique Atkinson did not admit to all of the details that Cheatham laid out in the case.
“I just hope that they will be able to give these people enough time where they would never ever get out and have the opportunity to hurt anyone else,” Freddie McCarthy said. “We don’t need that kind of fear in our community. We don’t need people who are going to harm others in our community anymore.”
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