Skyy Raven Marie Mims is a Detroit woman serving life in prison without parole for the March 2014 robbery and murder of convenience store clerk Dahyabhai Kalidas “D.K.” Chaudhari in Dalton, Georgia. A Whitfield County jury convicted her on all eleven counts in May 2015 after deliberating less than an hour. In January 2019, the Supreme Court of Georgia upheld her murder conviction but threw out a separate car-theft charge, finding her trial lawyer should have moved to try it separately. The Skyy Mims murder case remains closed for practical purposes: the district attorney declined to retry the vacated count, and she is still incarcerated under the life sentence.
The Killing at Hi-Tech Fuel
On the night of March 9, 2014, Mims entered the Hi-Tech Fuel convenience store on Airport Road in Dalton, Georgia. The clerk, 37-year-old Dahyabhai Kalidas Chaudhari, was a native of Badpura, India, in the United States on a work visa. He had recently moved into a mobile home behind the store. Acquaintances called him “D.K.” or “Dickey.”1Times Free Press. New Details Emerge About a Convenience Store
Prosecutors described the attack as plainly premeditated. Surveillance cameras captured Mims waiting for other customers to leave, then changing her clothes. She attacked Chaudhari in a back room, stabbing him and suffocating him with red duct tape placed over his mouth and eyes.2Local 3 News. Supreme Court Annuls Theft Charge for Skyy Mims A friend, Mark Rogers, later found Chaudhari lying on his back in the back room, surrounded by a large amount of blood.1Times Free Press. New Details Emerge About a Convenience Store Mims took cash from the register and roughly 60 “$500 a Week For Life” scratch-off lottery tickets.3True Crime News. Convenience Store Clerk Brutally Murdered by Model
Earlier that same day, cameras at a nearby Kangaroo convenience store had recorded Mims buying water and asking the clerk how much cash was in the register and where the safe was kept.4Dalton Citizen. Skyy Mims Trial Day 3: Y’all Caught Me Red-Handed Investigators and Chaudhari’s family confirmed that Mims and the victim did not know each other.5CBS News Detroit. Aspiring Detroit Model Found Guilty in Stabbing Death of Georgia Store Clerk
Who Skyy Mims Was
Mims was 21 at the time of the killing.6CBS News Detroit. Aspiring Detroit Model Accused of Killing GA Store Clerk Could Get Death Penalty A Detroit native, she had moved to the Atlanta area in January 2014 to pursue work as a rapper, dancer, model, and fashion designer.7Deadline Detroit. Detroit Model Skyy Mims Faces at Least 30 Years in Prison She had been staying with Kyle Alexander-music Harewood, a Detroit music producer, first in Kennesaw and then in a Cartersville home Harewood shared with his girlfriend, Shelby Vasquez.4Dalton Citizen. Skyy Mims Trial Day 3: Y’all Caught Me Red-Handed District Attorney Bert Poston told the jury that Mims robbed the store to fund her entertainment career.8Chattanoogan. DA Tells Dalton Jury Cell Phone of Skyy Mims Found at Scene
The Arrest and Her Own Words
Two days after the killing, on March 11, 2014, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation received a tip that Mims was staying at a home on Southmont Drive in a Bartow County subdivision. The GBI coordinated with the U.S. Marshals’ Southeast Regional Fugitive Task Force and the Bartow-Cartersville Drug Task Force. Around 5:33 p.m., officers entered the home. Deputy U.S. Marshal Raymon Kitson testified that Mims was found unclothed on the second floor. Officers attempted to use a Taser, but only one prong made contact. She screamed at officers to shoot her, retreated to a master bedroom, and eventually surrendered.4Dalton Citizen. Skyy Mims Trial Day 3: Y’all Caught Me Red-Handed
In the police cruiser afterward, Mims slipped out of her handcuffs and was recorded on video saying, “Y’all caught me red-handed.” She also asked, “What’s the holdup? What’s going on?” The next day, in a Whitfield County holding cell, she beat on the window, told deputies “You saw what I did,” and asked how many watts of electricity it would take to kill her. Jail staff reported she told them she had a “dark side.” Defense attorney Carla Marable later argued that Mims was “high and out of it” and believed she was being arrested on an outstanding Michigan warrant, not for murder.4Dalton Citizen. Skyy Mims Trial Day 3: Y’all Caught Me Red-Handed
The Evidence at Trial
The trial ran from April 27 to May 1, 2015, in Whitfield County Superior Court. Poston prosecuted; Marable, based in Detroit, defended.9Dalton Citizen. A Horrible Senseless Act That Didn’t Have to Happen The state’s case rested on four main pillars.
A cell phone found under a fryer at the crime scene contained modeling selfies of Mims.10Times Free Press. Murder Trial Against Aspiring Model Begins Skin cells recovered from latex gloves at the scene matched Mims; a DNA expert testified the frequency of the profile was “1 in 5 quintillion in the African American population.”2Local 3 News. Supreme Court Annuls Theft Charge for Skyy Mims Six cameras inside the gas station captured the attack, and the Kangaroo footage showed Mims casing the area earlier the same day.4Dalton Citizen. Skyy Mims Trial Day 3: Y’all Caught Me Red-Handed
Finally, Kyle Harewood testified that on March 8, the day before the killing, Mims showed him a long-bladed knife, a red bandana, a black and pink air pistol, and red duct tape. He identified the knife in court as the one she had bought. He also testified that the Monday after the killing, he helped Mims scratch off nearly 60 lottery tickets of the same type stolen from Chaudhari’s store.4Dalton Citizen. Skyy Mims Trial Day 3: Y’all Caught Me Red-Handed
Marable mounted a mistaken-identity defense, pointing to a woman named Keisha Jones in the Marietta/Smyrna area who she said resembled Mims, and attacking Harewood’s credibility over his admitted drug use.8Chattanoogan. DA Tells Dalton Jury Cell Phone of Skyy Mims Found at Scene The jury took 52 minutes to convict Mims on all eleven counts.11Times Free Press. Convicted Murderer Sky Mims Faces Sentencing
The Mental Health Question
Mims’ mental state came up repeatedly. Dr. Samuel Perri evaluated her in November 2014 and had her admitted to Central State Hospital after family reported paranoia and behavioral changes. At a March 2015 competency hearing, Perri testified she was competent to stand trial. She was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and a possible personality disorder, with impaired judgment and impulse control, but no active psychosis. No evaluation of her sanity at the time of the offense was ever conducted. Marable later testified that after consulting with Perri, she did not believe Mims met the criteria for an insanity plea.12FindLaw. Mims v. State, S18A1208
The Sentence
Judge Jack Partain sentenced Mims on June 19, 2015: life without parole for malice murder, a concurrent life term for armed robbery, a concurrent five years for burglary, and a consecutive five years for possession of a knife during the commission of a felony. Poston called the crime “a horrible, senseless act that didn’t have to happen.” Marable asked the court for life with the possibility of parole, citing untreated mental health issues. “I think to give Ms. Mims life without parole would be to just throw her away,” she told the court.9Dalton Citizen. A Horrible Senseless Act That Didn’t Have to Happen
The 2019 Georgia Supreme Court Decision
Represented on appeal by Micah J. Gates and Natalie K. Glaser, Mims took her case to the Supreme Court of Georgia. The court ruled on January 22, 2019, in Mims v. The State, Docket No. S18A1208, affirming in part and reversing in part.13Justia. Mims v. The State, S18A1208
The court reversed the one conviction for theft by bringing stolen property into the state, which involved a 2012 Kia Soul stolen in Detroit on January 30, 2014, and driven to Georgia about a month before the murder. Justice Nels S.D. Peterson wrote that there was “no argument, much less a showing, that the theft offense and the murder-related offenses were parts of a single scheme or plan.” The two sets of crimes occurred roughly a month apart, involved different victims in different states, and were not “so intertwined” that they needed to be tried together.14Dalton Citizen. State Supreme Court Upholds Mims Murder Conviction, Reverses Conviction for Theft Marable’s failure to move to sever the theft count was ineffective assistance, the court held, and the evidence on that count was “hardly overwhelming.”13Justia. Mims v. The State, S18A1208
The murder conviction and the other nine counts stood. The court called the evidence of Mims’ guilt on the murder-related offenses “overwhelming” and said joining the theft count to the trial had not prejudiced the murder case because the murder evidence was so strong on its own. The court rejected Mims’ remaining ineffective-assistance claims. On insanity, she had offered no expert testimony that she was legally insane at the time of the offense. On venue, the court agreed with Marable’s call not to seek a change, given the case’s national coverage. On plea negotiations, there was no evidence a specific deal had been available or that Mims would have taken one. The court also found no due process violation in her absence from a hearing on her motion for a new trial.12FindLaw. Mims v. State, S18A1208
The court noted the state could technically retry the theft charge, but Poston announced he would not. “Regardless, we will not be retrying the theft charge,” he said, pointing to the life-without-parole sentence already in place.15Fox Chattanooga. Georgia Supreme Court Vacates Car Theft Conviction for Skyy Mims
Where the Case Stands
Skyy Mims remains incarcerated, serving life without the possibility of parole for the murder of D.K. Chaudhari. All ten remaining convictions from the 2015 trial are intact, and no publicly reported appeals or habeas corpus proceedings have followed the Georgia Supreme Court’s 2019 decision.