BURLINGTON — Melissa Davis, the widow of Gregory Davis, addressed for the first time the man who ordered her husband’s deadly hit and that man’s former friend who played a role in carrying it out.
Gregory Davis, of Danville, was killed more than seven years ago not far from his home after he was kidnapped and shot as part of a murder-for-hire plot.
“I stand here today not only as a widow, but as the mother of seven children whose lives were shattered the night Gregg was taken from us,” Melissa Davis said Thursday. She spoke during the sentencing hearing in Burlington’s federal court for Serhat Gumrukcu, the man convicted of commissioning her husband’s killing.
Gumrukcu walked into the courtroom before the hearing, dressed in a red prison uniform. Sitting a few feet away from where Melissa Davis stood in the courtroom to address him, Gumrukcu did not appear to look at her or react to her words. In the roughly 30-minute hearing, he did not address her comments.
A jury convicted Gumrukcu in April of several charges, including murder for hire and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The jury reached the verdict following a five-week trial that featured him taking the stand in his own defense and the three co-defendants testifying against him.
Melissa Davis, her voice breaking with emotion, talked Thursday about the scar the death of her 49-year-old husband left on her and her children. She was pregnant with their seventh child when Gregg was killed, but despite the devastation, she said she decided to name the baby Jubilee. “I chose to believe God would one day bring beauty, restoration, and freedom,” she said, her words interrupted by sobs.
Melissa Davis continued to describe how their oldest daughter just started college this summer and had decided to study forensic psychology and help combat crime. Their oldest son studies criminal justice and tries to fill the role of his father — a burden no boy should have, Davis said.
While Melissa Davis fought depression to be strong for her children, Gumrukcu lived a wealthy life built on lies and deception, she said.
“You thought you could silence my husband, but your lies die here in this courtroom,” she told Gumrukcu.
Gregg’s death protected future victims from Gumrukcu, and her late husband’s legacy will continue through his children, according to Melissa Davis.
Sheryl Davis, Gregg’s mother, also submitted a statement for the court. Assistant U.S. Attorney Zachary Stendig read it for her, as she said she couldn’t bear to be face-to-face with the men who killed her son. Gregg was her only child, Sheryl Davis wrote in the statement, and he left behind four boys and three girls who can no longer count on their father. She asked the court to sentence Gumrukcu to life in prison.
Later Thursday, Berk Eratay, Gumrukcu’s former friend, was sentenced for his role in the plot. He had earlier pleaded guilty to charges of murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and conspiracy to launder money.
Melissa Davis addressed Eratay, too, saying that his choices contributed to her husband’s death but also acknowledging that she saw him change during the trial. When Eratay described the sorrow he felt over the loss of his father, who died while he was incarcerated, Melissa Davis said she felt a connection with him because she had endured that kind of pain, too.
Yet, she found solace in faith and exhorted Eratay to do the same, noting that “the debt of taking a life cannot ever be repaid by human hands.”
Eratay and Melissa Davis had exchanged letters before, but this time, Davis said, she could look him in the eye and tell him, “I forgive you.” Eratay wiped away tears as he lifted his head to look at her.
‘How do things get so far off track?’
The two sentencing hearings unfolded in different ways.
In the first one, Judge Christina Reiss has said she has no leeway in the sentence she could impose since Gumrukcu’s convictions carry a mandatory sentence of life behind bars.
However, the judge agreed Thursday to a request from Susan Marcus, Gumrukcu’s attorney, to delay the formal imposition of that sentence until November. Marcus told the judge she needed more time to consider possible challenges to information contained in a pre-sentence report prepared by a federal probation officer ahead of Thursday’s hearing.
Reiss, in granting the delay, apologized to Davis’ family members in the courtroom but said it was important that Gumrukcu had the ability to present his position as well.
Gumrukcu, 42, was arrested in May 2022 in California, where he was living at the time. A Turkish national, Gumrukcu had come to the United States more than a decade earlier and worked as an entrepreneur and biomedical researcher.
The prosecutors argued during the trial that greed motivated Gumrukcu to kill Gregory Davis, and he ordered and paid for the deadly hit.
Gumrukcu, according to prosecutors, feared that Gregory Davis was going to report him to authorities and accuse him of fraud in a failed oil deal between the two men. Gumrukcu believed that the fraud allegation could jeopardize a larger biomedical deal he had been working on, where he eventually gained tens of millions of dollars, the prosecutors told the jury.
Prosecutors told jurors that Gumrukcu brought Eratay into the plot to help carry it out with two other men — Aron Lee Ethridge and Jerry Banks — later joining in. Banks was ultimately the one who traveled to Vermont and fatally shot Gregory Davis in January 2018.
Banks and Ethridge, who have also reached plea deals with prosecutors, are set to be sentenced Friday.
Allan Sullivan, Eratay’s attorney, argued Thursday for a five-year prison sentence for his client, half of what the prosecutor was seeking. The defense attorney cited, in large part, Eratay’s cooperation with the prosecutors and that he testified over several days in Gumrukcu’s trial.
Reiss questioned Eratay during the hearing to better understand his motive. The judge said she read the 70 letters submitted by friends and relatives in his support and pointed out that they showed Eratay had always been loved and supported — unlike some of the other men involved in the murder for hire who had troubled pasts.
Yet he still ended up involved in a murder plot.
“How do things get so far off track?” she asked.
Eratay wasn’t fully able to answer that question, but his statements — and those of prosecutors — suggested Gumrukcu’s charisma along with Eratay’s loyalty and eagerness to help his friend played a central role.
“It took him some time to realize how deeply involved he was,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Pau Van de Graaf said. In contrast with the other men involved, Eratay didn’t have a personal or financial motive, the prosecutor said. He believed he was only a middleman, Van de Graaf added, but after his father passed, he probably realized how involved he had been.
Eratay, 39, also spoke, apologizing to the Davis family members in the courtroom for his actions and telling the judge he believed he fell under the influence of Gumrukcu and acted out of loyalty to his friend.
“I hope today you will give me a second chance,” Eratay said to Reiss, as his mother, who came from Turkey, and several friends sat in the court.
Reiss told Eratay she believed a five-year prison term for Eratay was too short given the seriousness of the offenses, but she didn’t impose the full 10 years the prosecution had requested.
In imposing a sentence of 110 months, or just over nine years, Reiss told Eratay she wanted him to take to heart the words delivered in the courtroom moments earlier by Melissa Davis.
“I hope you know how lucky you are that she forgives you,” the judge told him.
