90 DAY FIANCE Douglas ‘DJ Doug’ Wooten pleads guilty to murder, sentenced to life EXCLUSIVE

Venue coordinator Douglas “DJ Doug” Wooten went viral after his appearance with Angela Deem during 90 Day Fiance: Before the 90 Days Season 3. Unfortunately for Doug, he made news again in early 2021 after he was arrested for murder stemming from the home invasion and shooting death of a 54-year-old Georgia man.

According to the indictment, Doug and three other people participated in the invasion of a house owned by a woman named Brittany Martinez on January 4, 2021. The participants included 39-year-old Doug, 18-year-old Denver Wooten, 39-year-old Kegan Bennett, and 32-year-old Verlyttia Ivory. (There are reports that Denver is Doug’s son and Verlyttia was Doug’s girlfriend, but that has not been confirmed.)

Doug had a 9 mm pistol, Denver had a .38 caliber revolver, and Kegan had a 410 caliber shotgun. During the course of the home invasion, Marcos Ramirez was shot and killed. The court documents do not indicate how many times the victim was shot or who shot him. The indictment does indicate that Kegan was charged with an additional count of aggravated assault for allegedly holding a gun to Brittany’s head.

Doug was charged with 3 counts of felony murder (an explanation is included below for why there are three counts despite there being only one death), armed robbery, home invasion, aggravated assault and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony.

Douglas Wooten pleads guilty to murder, sentenced to life

Douglas Wooten pleaded guilty to felony murder on May 2. As part of the plea deal, all of the other charges were changed to nolle prosequi, which means the DA agreed to not prosecute those charges.

As a result of his guilty plea, Doug received a life sentence in prison with the possibility of parole. According to the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles, a person receiving a life sentence for felony murder is eligible for parole after serving 30 years.

Doug has been credited with time served beginning on January 7 of 2021. That would mean that he will become eligible for parole in January of 2051.

Court documents indicate that Doug’s co-defendant, Kegan Bennett, took a similar plea deal with the same life sentence. The cases involving Denver Wooten and Verlyttia Ivory are still open.

Why was Doug charged with 3 counts of felony murder?

Douglas Wooten was charged with felony murder for the shooting death of Marcos Ramirez. He also received two additional felony murder charges due to the fact that Mr. Ramirez was murdered in the course of multiple felony acts. How could he be charged with multiple murder counts when there was only one death?

This question came up during the case involving the death of Ahmaud Arbery, which also took place in the state of Georgia. WSVN explains that a separate murder charge can result from each felony that resulted in the death of the victim:

The three men intentionally committed four felonies — two counts of aggravated assault and one count each of false imprisonment and criminal attempt to commit false imprisonment — and each of those felonies caused Arbery’s death.

The McMichaels and Bryan could each be convicted of multiple counts of murder, which would then be merged for sentencing.

I will iterate that Doug was only convicted of a single felony murder charge. The other two felony murder charges were dropped, which makes sense given that the other felony charges were dropped.

Douglas is the second on-screen associate of Angela Deem to be convicted of a felony. Angela’s daughter, Scottie Deem, pleaded guilty to three counts of child molestation in early 2019. Scottie received three 20-year prison sentences to be served concurrently.

Scottie was released on parole in May of 2020 after serving just one year and three months of the 20 years.

NOTE: I attempted to view the 90 Day Fiance: Before the 90 Days scene with Doug, but it appears that producers have deleted the scene from the episode currently available on Discovery+.

Asa Hawks is a writer and editor for Starcasm. You can contact Asa via Twitter, Facebook, or email at starcasmtips(at)yahoo.com