More information on the Gregory Davis murder case can be found at ABC22/FOX44’s previous stories on the case at the links below, and in the video at the top of the article from September.
BURLINGTON, Vt. (ABC22/FOX44) – A man who claimed he discovered a cure for HIV has been sentenced to life in prison for paying for the murder of Gregory Davis in Barnet, Vermont in 2018.
Feds: Murder of Danville man linked to oil deal
Serhat Gumrukcu, 43, of Los Angeles, was found guilty of murder-for-hire in April. He paid for the murder as Davis was threatening to go to the authorities in connection with wire fraud, while negotiating a multi-million dollar biotech merger. That merger was completed mere days after Davis’s murder.
For nearly four years, the perpetrators of the murder were unknown – but Gumrukcu was arrested and denied bail as a flight risk in 2022.
Three men sentenced for 2018 Barnet murder-for-hire
Gumrukcu’s friend Berk Eratay, 38, of Las Vegas, Nevada, was tasked with arranging the killing, and he engaged Aron Ethridge, 45, of Henderson, Nevada to find a hitman. Jerry Banks, 37, of Gardener, Montana, was hired as the actual hitman.
Melissa Davis, Gregory Davis’s widow, said that the prosecution’s “strength, commitment, and unwavering pursuit of justice over these many years will stay with me for the rest of my life.”
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