Americus, Georgia – December 4, 2025 – The courtroom in Sumter County Superior Court fell into a heavy silence on Wednesday as prosecutors painted a harrowing picture of jealousy and violence in the ongoing murder trial of Trinity Madison Poague, a 20-year-old former beauty queen once celebrated for her poise and charm. Poague, who was stripped of her Miss Donalsonville title shortly after her arrest, faces a potential life sentence if convicted of killing her boyfriend's 18-month-old son, Romeo "Jaxton Dru" Angeles, in a brutal attack inside her Georgia Southwestern State University dorm room nearly two years ago. The case, which began with opening statements on Tuesday, has gripped the small college town of Americus and drawn national attention, with live streams from Court TV amplifying the emotional weight of the proceedings.
Poague, a freshman nursing student at the time of the incident, was arrested on January 19, 2024, just five days after the toddler was discovered unresponsive in her Nauset Hall dorm room on the GSW campus. Born on June 25, 2022, in Tallahassee, Florida, little Jaxton – affectionately called "J.D." by his family – had been living with his father, Julian Williams, and his aunt since he was just three or four months old. Williams, 22 at the time, had begun dating Poague in the fall of 2023 after she started classes at the university, about 135 miles south of Atlanta. What began as a seemingly typical young romance quickly unraveled, prosecutors argue, under the strain of Poague's growing resentment toward the child she viewed as an obstacle to her dreams of starting a family with Williams.
District Attorney Lewis R. "Bud" Lamb delivered a blistering opening statement on December 2, describing Poague's alleged motive as rooted in deep-seated jealousy. "Trinity Poague resented this child," Lamb told the jury of 12, emphasizing that she longed for a baby of her own with Williams, whom she saw as devoting too much time to his son. Lamb recounted text messages Poague allegedly sent to her roommate, Paris, on the night before the fatal incident, including one that read, "I can't stand being around JD anymore. He hates me and I hate him." Another message reportedly expressed her desire to "punch the child," painting a portrait of a young woman unraveling under the pressures of caregiving and unfulfilled aspirations.
The events of January 13 and 14, 2024, unfolded with tragic inevitability, according to testimony. The trio – Poague, Williams, and Jaxton – had enjoyed a seemingly normal outing to dinner the evening of the 13th, with no visible injuries or distress noted on the toddler. Back in the dorm, however, tensions simmered. Poague texted her roommate complaining about Jaxton's fussiness and Williams' lack of help, eventually asking to crash in Paris's room to escape the crying. Videos from Poague's phone, played in court, showed Jaxton playing normally earlier that evening, without a single bruise – a stark contrast to the horrors that would soon follow.
The next morning, around noon on January 14, Williams stepped out to pick up pizza from a nearby spot, leaving Poague alone with Jaxton for approximately 35 minutes – a window prosecutors say was all it took for the fatal assault. While Williams was gone, Poague called him in a panic, claiming the child had stopped breathing and that she didn't know what happened. Williams rushed back, scooped up his unresponsive son, and raced to Phoebe Sumter Medical Center, arriving around 12:45 p.m. Jaxton was pronounced dead at approximately 4 p.m., after futile attempts to revive him.
Medical testimony on Wednesday provided chilling details of the toddler's injuries, which the indictment accuses Poague of inflicting through "blunt force trauma" to his head and torso with "malice aforethought." Emergency room physician Dr. Michael Busman, with over 30 years of experience, took the stand and described Jaxton arriving without a pulse or breath, his tiny body swollen from a direct blow to the head that caused rapid brain swelling. Fluid leaked from his nose, and his face bore fresh bruises that hadn't been there the night before. An autopsy later revealed a lacerated liver – described as "serious disfigurement" – multiple brain bleeds, a fractured skull with hemorrhage, and bruises across his face and neck. Lamb stressed to the jury: "It's an acute injury... not something that could have happened from falling off a bed. It occurred within minutes before the ER." Poague initially claimed Jaxton had simply "rolled off the bed," but later admitted to hospital staff that she had "shaken" him because he "wasn't acting correctly." Busman dismissed the fall explanation outright, testifying that such injuries required violent force inconsistent with an accidental tumble.
Lilly Waterman, a fellow GSW student whose room was just doors away, provided a poignant eyewitness account via earlier statements played in court. She recalled hearing Jaxton's cries echoing through the hall for over an hour that morning, only for them to "suddenly stop." "Everyone said that suddenly it just stopped," Waterman told WRDW in 2024, her voice cracking at the memory. Williams himself testified emotionally on Tuesday, recounting how Jaxton had vomited twice that day – once in the dorm and again en route to the hospital – and how he found vomit on his own clothes from holding his son. Photos from university police body cameras, entered as evidence, corroborated his account, showing the stains on his black Nike outfit.
Poague's defense attorney, W.T. "Tim" Gamble III, countered in his opening that the prosecution's case is built on circumstantial evidence and fails to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. "There is no evidence of a crime occurring at all," Gamble asserted, pointing out the absence of blood or DNA linking Poague directly to the injuries. He portrayed Williams as a "controlling boyfriend" who had been drinking the night before and suggested Poague was a caring figure who "fed the child... she took care of him." Gamble urged the jury: "In seeking justice in this case, do not let justice be found at the cross of innocent blood. Trinity Poague is not guilty of the crime she is accused of." Poague, dressed in a simple blouse and appearing far removed from her glamorous pageant days, sat stoically throughout, occasionally glancing at Williams, who avoided her gaze.
Poague's brief reign as Miss Donalsonville in 2023 had been a source of local pride. Crowned in her hometown of about 2,500 residents near the Alabama and Florida borders, she competed at the National Peanut Festival pageant but didn't place, later posting on Instagram about the experience as a lesson in gratitude: "Win or lose, I have gained the world throughout my reign." Yet, following her arrest, the pageant committee invoked its code of ethics to vacate the title, with the director stating, "The city of Donalsonville is not in the pageant business... that is not how we want to be represented." Poague, who graduated from Southwest Georgia Academy in May 2023, was released on a $75,000 bond in February 2024 but remains under ankle monitor restrictions.
The trial, expected to wrap by Thursday or Friday, has sparked widespread discussion on social media, with X users sharing live updates and expressing outrage over the case's brutality. A GoFundMe for Williams raised over $12,000 in Jaxton's memory, with donors remembering the boy as "full of life and joy." As closing arguments loom, the jury must decide if Poague's actions were born of malice or if reasonable doubt lingers in the shadows of this devastating loss. For the family, friends, and a community still reeling, the verdict cannot bring back Jaxton, but it may offer a measure of closure to a story that began with crowns and ended in unimaginable tragedy.
