The family of a 7-year-old South Georgia boy killed by a driver high on cocaine and fentanyl who has so far escaped any prosecution may finally find justice as state investigators say they are launching a probe into the investigation into Logan Sharpe’s death.
Shockingly, Pierce County prosecutors have refused to charge 26-year-old Dalton Cason with vehicular homicide, which legal experts say would be the appropriate charge under state law because he was driving while under the influence of drugs, as a toxicology report from the GBI confirmed. Cason is white. Logan was Black.
It took nine months for Pierce County to even bring a charge against Cason — misdemeanor driving under the influence.
Now, Cason, and those who investigated his case, could face criminal charges, The Blackshear Times reports. Waycross Judicial Circuit District Attorney Marilyn Bennett is taking over the case and said she is consulting with the Prosecuting Attorney’s Council to navigate the best way forward.
Bennett said she decided to pursue the investigation after lobbying by Shaunte Sharpe, Logan’s mother, who has been outspoken on social media and elsewhere about her desire to see Cason charged with a felony. Atlanta Black Star shed new light on the case last month.
“It’s a slap in our face because they have the evidence and everything, they need to charge Dalton with vehicular homicide, but they won’t do it,” Sharpe told Atlanta Black Star in May. “Like my son’s life didn’t matter.”
Sharpe’s crusade for justice got some more good news this week when the family’s GoFundMe page neared its stated goal of $100,000, with more than $87,000 raised as of June 9. The fundraiser climbed mostly due to an anonymous donation of $50,000.
On the GoFundMe page, the family includes a chilling detail of Cason’s alleged reaction after hitting Logan: “He sat in his car and couldn’t even be bothered to check on Logan as he lay in the road. He just sat and waited for the police to arrive like he was in some simple fender bender.”
Not surprisingly, seeing Cason pay for his actions on May 19, 2024, remains Sharpe’s top priority.
“I just want justice,” Shaunte Sharpe said. “I just want Dalton to be held accountable because he knows what he done was wrong.”
Investigators in the South Georgia town of Patterson were quick to turn Cason’s story into the official narrative, Sharpe family advocates say. The critics claim Chase Middleton, the Georgia state trooper who responded to the scene (and whose wife is Facebook friends with the suspect), appears to have lied in his report to protect the driver.
An 81-year-old Black man who witnessed the incident says he told Middleton Logan and his friends were walking on the sidewalk when he was struck so hard his body flew in the air and landed on the road. Cason, he said, had hit the boy on the sidewalk.
But in Middleton’s report, he claims the witness said Logan was standing in the middle of the street when Cason struck him.
Other witnesses backed up the 81-year-old’s account. Logan’s older brother Keisean also said the point of contact was the sidewalk, according to a woman who witnessed the boy’s anguished response.
And another witness signed a statement saying she overheard the elderly witness telling the cop the child was run over on the sidewalk.
None of this found its way into Middleton’s report, which helped Cason, who has a previous conviction on cocaine possession, avoid vehicular homicide charges.
The family also accuses Middleton of turning off his body camera during the investigation.
There were other irregularities. Cason’s family was allegedly allowed to remove items from his truck before it was impounded.
“The cops were standing right there, letting them remove stuff from his truck,” a relative said. “They didn’t search him and they didn’t search his truck because they let his family get what they wanted and whatever he had just bought.”
Bennett said she is aware of the public’s interest in the case but is withholding further comment.
“Precious little Logan will never get to go home. He will never return to his family and friends. Never return to school and to his room. Never graduate and go to college to follow his dreams. Never get married and have sweet little babies of his own that would be such a blessing to his own family,” the online fundraiser says.
