Defendant not where expected

For the past few months, local authorities thought they knew the whereabouts of Augusta homicide suspect Maurice L. Roscoe, 29.

They assumed Mr. Roscoe was safely tucked away in a Georgia prison cell waiting for his murder case to come to trial.

But he wasn't.

In Richmond County Superior Court, where he was set to stand trial Monday morning, a prosecutor called his name. He wasn't there.

He was, however, behind bars.

It turned out Mr. Roscoe had been in the Columbia County Jail since May 7, but it was almost by accident that he was there.

The confusion started April 9, when he was released from a Georgia State Prison in Davisboro. Mr. Roscoe could have been returned to Richmond County to face murder charges, but he wasn't.

His freedom was short-lived. Five days later, he was arrested in east Tennessee. Authorities there found out he was wanted on a Columbia County warrant for an old aggravated assault charge.

Columbia County authorities brought him to their jail because he was accused but never caught, in an aggravated assault involving a January 2007 shooting.

He had been arrested and jailed in Richmond County in February 2007 in connection with the fatal shooting of Pierce McClattie in Augusta. After that arrest, Mr. Roscoe was placed in state custody because the charge violated an old parole sentence for cocaine possession. The April 9 release came after he completed that sentence, according to a Department of Corrections' Web site.

Local authorities are usually notified by the corrections department before an inmate who has pending charges is released. That didn't happen in this case, and a corrections department spokeswoman did not respond Monday to a request for information about Mr. Roscoe.

Columbia County sheriff's Capt. Steve Morris said it was not immediately clear why Mr. Roscoe was arrested in east Tennessee or how Columbia County authorities learned he was in jail there.

Typically, a police agency does a background check to see whether a prisoner has outstanding warrants.

District Attorney Ashley Wright said she had Mr. Roscoe transferred to the Richmond County Jail on Monday. He will stay there until he stands trial on the murder charges, she said.

Reach Sandy Hodson at (706) 823-3226

or sandy.hodson@augustachronicle.com.