A crazed killer who danced over the body of a protective dad he gunned down in front of his wife and baby has been sentenced to 50 years in prison — after trying to blame it on drugs making him think he was in a video game.
Former UPS driver Tamarius Davis, now 27, showed no reaction in court Thursday as he was locked up for decades for murdering Dustin Wakefield, a 21-year-old new dad from Colorado, on the patio of Miami Beach’s La Cerveceria restaurant in August 2021.
Wakefield was protecting his 1-year-old son, Elijah, and wife, Karina Olguin, when he was shot by Davis — who was then spotted dancing around his body.
The killer, who was on vacation from Georgia, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder after earlier telling cops he “randomly” picked his victim while high on psychedelic mushrooms.
“He suffered a psychotic episode which detached him from reality which created some delusional belief that he was inside a video game,” his lawyer, Juan Mourin, told the judge during the sentencing hearing.
Judge Laura Stuzin didn’t buy it.
“This was not a mistake or just a bad episode. This was preventable,” the judge told Davis, who also hit another patron who survived.
“There was something lurking in your inner being that was dark, and you knew it, and you hid, and you could have asked for help.”
Prosecutor Casey Hughes, meanwhile, said the drugs merely “exposed the bitter roots in his heart.”
“It gave him courage to do what was already there,” Hughes added, warning that “anything than less than life in prison is allowing evil to defeat good.”
“We must not let that happen. The stakes are too high,” the prosecutor warned.
Wakefield’s widow told the hearing of her family’s enduring loss — and the heartbreak of their now-7-year-old son asking questions about the slain dad he was too young to know.
“What happened that day didn’t just take my husband from me, it took away my sense of safety,” she said, according to the Miami Herald, saying she can’t venture into a grocery store or restaurant without mapping out an escape route.
“When I wanted to become a mother there was one thing I wanted more than anything; I wanted my son to grow up with a daddy,” she said.
Wakefield’s sister, Kayla Wakefield, also lamented how in “one moment [her] little brother was alive… and in an instant, that future was gone.”
Davis’ volley of shots also struck another patron, leaving them with non-life-threatening injuries.
