Just after 9 a.m. on August 18, 2008, two Black men wearing face masks entered a Wachovia Bank branch in Lithia Springs, Georgia. They held the three female tellers at gunpoint and robbed them of $18,000. The tellers placed the money in bags along with red dye packs. The robbers took the bags and left.
Surveillance footage captured the men, one in a white shirt and one in a brown shirt, jumping over the counters. One teller described the person in the brown shirt as about 5’9” tall with a medium to small build. The other robber was shorter and had dreadlocks.
Tom Thompson told investigators he was about to enter the bank when he saw a white Cadillac Seville backed into a parking space with both front doors partially open. He completed his transaction and returned to his car, then saw two men wearing masks get out of the Cadillac and run into the bank.
Thompson called 911 and gave the operator the license plate number of the Cadillac.
Janet Hilgerson was pulling into the bank’s parking lot just as the robbers were driving off. Someone told Hilgerson to “follow that car,” which she did, tailing the car until it turned into the parking lot of the Efficiency Lodge motel about a mile away. Hilgerson returned to the bank and gave the police a partial plate number of the Cadillac.
Police found the Cadillac in the motel’s parking lot. The police searched the vehicle and found red dye stains as well as a checkbook belonging to 29-year-old Brandon Pugh, the car’s registered owner. In addition, the police also found a face mask worn by one of the robbers.
Investigators with the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office learned that Pugh, who lived in Atlanta, had gone to the East Point Police Department at 11 a.m. on the day of the robbery to report that his car had been stolen at a gas station just after midnight. East Point is just south of Atlanta. Douglas County borders Atlanta on the west.
The sheriff’s deputies interviewed Pugh later that day at Hartsfield Jackson International Airport, where he worked as a tug driver, pushing airplanes away from the gate. The interview took place in an Atlanta Police Department office at the airport. Pugh was not advised of his Miranda rights.
Pugh said that he was at home in bed at the time of the robbery and that he did not get up until his parents came to take him to the East Point Police Department to report his stolen car. He first told the Douglas investigators that someone stole his car when he went inside the gas station. Then he changed his account and said he was carjacked by a man with dreadlocks.
Pugh had brought a black book bag with him to the interview, and he allowed the investigators to examine the bag’s contents, which included the Cadillac’s registration and insurance cards, as well as a pair of gloves. Pugh said that the man who stole his car had allowed Pugh to take these documents before driving off with his car.
The investigators also said they saw red stains on Pugh’s left hand. Although the tellers had not seen the robbers’ faces, Pugh appeared similar in build to one of the men as seen in the bank’s surveillance footage. He was arrested and charged with three counts of robbery and two counts of giving false statements to law enforcement. At the time of his arrest, Pugh was 5’8” tall and weighed 208 pounds. He did not have dreadlocks, and investigators believed he was the bank robber wearing the brown shirt.
During a search of Pugh’s house, investigators found a red stain in a bathroom trash can.
Pugh’s jury trial in Douglas County Superior Court took place in September 2010, with Judge William McClain presiding.
A sheriff’s investigator testified about the interview with Pugh and said that he initially believed that Pugh’s car had been stolen and used without his permission in the robbery. But the investigator said he changed his opinion after Pugh gave inconsistent statements, showed nervousness, and couldn’t explain why he delayed reporting the stolen car for nearly 12 hours.
A forensic analyst with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) had analyzed the red substance found on Pugh’s hand and on his trash can and reported that it was not bank dye. But the analyst didn’t testify. Instead, the report was introduced through the testimony of a police officer, who said the results were inconclusive. Pugh’s attorney had a copy of the GBI report but did not effectively cross-examine the officer.
Pugh’s neighbor, Ricky Smith, testified that he saw a man with dreadlocks drop Pugh off at his house at about 10:30 a.m. on the day of the robbery. During cross-examination, Pugh’s attorney attempted to impeach Smith by showing him an unnotarized affidavit, in which Smith denied seeing Pugh that morning or telling the police that he had seen him. The attorney asked Smith if he remembered meeting with a defense investigator, reviewing the document, and signing it. Smith testified that he had never seen the document before and that the part of the document where he said he had not seen Pugh on the morning of the robbery was not true.
Judge McClain denied a defense motion to admit the document into evidence, ruling that it was not properly authenticated.
The state also introduced Pugh’s financial records, which showed he owed money to at least six creditors and was having a quarter of his wages garnished to pay child support and a student loan.
Pugh testified. He denied taking part in the robbery and said that the red stains on his hands were from Kool-Aid. His mother testified that she, not the defense investigator, had gone to Smith’s house to question him about what he saw. The mother said she showed Smith the prepared affidavit, which Smith signed in her presence. This was the same document the defense had previously tried to admit into evidence.
The defense again moved for its admission. With the jury excused, Judge McClain criticized the attorney, calling his actions with the document “extremely troubling and extremely irregular.” He again denied the defense request to admit the evidence.
Pugh had called the Atlanta Police Department at 2:06 a.m. on August 18, 2008, to report the car theft. An Atlanta officer came to Pugh’s house and told him that because the incident occurred outside the city’s jurisdiction, Pugh would need to report the crime to the East Point police. Pugh’s attorney had sought to call the officer to testify about the time and substance of this conversation, but he failed to properly notify the state about this witness, and Judge McClain excluded this testimony.
The jury convicted Pugh of all charges on September 24, 2010, and Judge McClain later sentenced Pugh to life in prison.
Pugh moved for a new trial, arguing that his attorney had been ineffective for failing to impeach Smith with the purported affidavit and for failing to try to suppress the statements Pugh made while being questioned at the airport.
At an evidentiary hearing, Smith testified that he had signed the document after Pugh’s mother gave it to him. But he also repeated what he said at trial, that the section of the document where he said he hadn’t seen Pugh was not true. During his hearing testimony, Smith said that he didn’t actually see Pugh get out of the man’s car; he just saw Pugh walking away from the vehicle. The hearing judge affirmed the robbery convictions but vacated the false statement convictions based on the state’s failure to establish the proper venue for the alleged crime.
Pugh appealed, and the Georgia Court of Appeals affirmed the robbery convictions on July 15, 2013. While noting the trial attorney’s errors in trying to introduce the document, the court said Pugh could not show the document’s introduction would have changed the verdict, given the strong evidence of guilt. It wrote that “the stains found on his hand and in his home … were consistent with the red dye packs from the bank robbery.”
The court also said that the officers had no obligation to advise Pugh of his Miranda rights. Pugh was not in custody, and at the start of the interview the investigators did not consider Pugh to be a suspect.
In April 2024, attorney Leigh Schrope filed an application for review of Pugh’s sentence with the Douglas County District Attorney’s Justice Integrity Unit (JIU). The application said that Pugh’s sentence appeared to be far harsher than other sentences for armed robbery and that there was new evidence supporting Pugh’s claim that he did not take part in the bank robbery.
According to the application:
Cellphone records supported Pugh’s timeline and his claim that he didn’t delay in reporting his stolen car.
Pugh did not fit the physical description of the robber in the brown shirt. He was too heavy, with a body-mass index consistent with obesity, not a medium-to-small build.
Pugh’s timeline on the day of the robbery was inconsistent with his involvement in the crime. He and his parents had gone to the East Point Police Department and made a report at 10:50 a.m. about the stolen car. The station was about 10 minutes from Pugh’s house. According to the state’s theory, Pugh had to have been dropped off by his accomplice at 10:30 a.m., gone inside, washed his hands, called his parents to get him and drive him to the station, ask for an officer, and make a report in 20 minutes. “This does not seem physically possible or probable,” the application said.
“The case against Mr. Pugh was tenuous at best,” the application said. “It is interesting to note that the Court of Appeals noted that the red dye on Mr. Pugh’s hands and a trash can was consistent with the dye pack, but the GBI lab report indicates that this is not accurate; the red on Mr. Pugh’s nails and from the trash can [were] not from the bank dye pack.”
In 2012, police arrested a man named Johann Wright for an unrelated armed robbery. His DNA was entered into the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), which showed that Wright was a contributor to the DNA found on the face mask. Wright pled guilty to the Wachovia bank robbery in 2013. At Wright’s sentencing, he said that he did not know Brandon Pugh.
Schrope interviewed Wright in prison. In an affidavit dated March 20, 2024, Wright again said Pugh did not take part in the robbery. Wright said he had met Pugh once in prison, during a transfer, but did not know him. He said that the police had confiscated his cellphone at the time of his arrest. “I am certain a search of that phone will show that I never communicated with Mr. Pugh because I did not and do not know him,” Wright said.
The application noted that Wright, with a history of violent crimes, had received a shorter sentence than Pugh. It also said that when Pugh moved for a new trial, the state offered him a plea deal that would have required him to serve 13 years in prison. Pugh rejected that deal.
The application acknowledged Pugh’s financial straits at the time of the robbery but said this didn’t amount to a motive. It also acknowledged that Pugh gave inconsistent statements to the police, triggering their suspicions, but said, “It is not uncommon for a Black male to feel uncomfortable when police show up at his place of work and begin questioning him. Further, he had lied to his parents [about how his car had been stolen] and, stupidly, at first tried to continue that lie.”
The Douglas County JIU requires innocence claims to be supported by a third-party innocence organization. The Georgia Innocence Project, although not representing Pugh, reviewed his claim at Schrope’s request.
In a letter dated December 18, 2025, Litigation Director Christina Cribbs wrote that Pugh’s case contained lots of red flags consistent with wrongful convictions. These included inaccurate forensic testimony, DNA evidence identifying Wright, and tunnel vision on the part of investigators. The letter also said Pugh’s attorney was ineffective, failing to secure the testimony of the Atlanta officer and to admit cellphone records that showed Pugh’s diligence in reporting his stolen car.
The Douglas County JIU began its investigation on Pugh’s request for resentencing in May 2024 and began a more rigorous review of his claims of innocence in January 2026.
On May 13, 2026, District Attorney Dahlia Racine filed an emergency motion in Douglas County Superior Court to vacate Pugh’s convictions. Judge Lauren Wallace granted the motion to vacate and then granted a separate motion to dismiss the case, releasing Pugh from prison that day.
In her order, Judge Wallace said that “numerous substantive errors occurred both during and after Pugh’s trial, which cast grave doubt upon the integrity of the conviction.” This included the exclusion of the affidavit and the Atlanta police testimony, Wright’s denial of Pugh’s involvement, as well as the “miscategorization of the dye pack evidence, which actually pointed away from Pugh as a suspect.”
Racine announced the exoneration on May 18, 2026. At a press conference, she apologized to Pugh and his family. She said the JIU had uncovered other problems with the evidence used to convict Pugh.
Racine said the surveillance video gave a distorted image of the robbers, making the man in the brown shirt, whom witnesses described as having a medium-to-slim build, appear to be heavier and closer to Pugh in shape.
“When we look at this person hopping over the bank counter, it is very clear that this is an individual consistent with the eyewitness testimony,” Racine said.
Racine said that surveillance footage captured Pugh’s Seville pulling into the parking lot of the Efficiency Lodge at approximately 2:30 a.m. on August 18. The motel is about 25-30 minutes from Pugh’s home, and the vehicles arrived just after Pugh finished his interview with the Atlanta police. “It is an impossibility for Pugh to have been at the Efficiency Lodge,” Racine said.
The JIU, led by Assistant District Attorney Kelsey Smith, also asked the GBI to re-examine its bank-dye report. The agency confirmed that the report concluded that the red stains were not bank dye. Racine said the officer’s trial testimony was “unclear, but came off as being potentially inconclusive as to the actual results.”
The JIU interviewed Wright in 2026. He did not name his accomplice in the bank robbery, but said the man had a slim build. Wright told investigators how his face mask was lost during the getaway, and he said that he and his accomplice drove to Clayton County, not Atlanta, after leaving Pugh’s Cadillac at the motel.
Racine said that Wright said it was his “pattern and practice” to steal cars to use for robberies. His direct quote, Racine said, was, “Only an idiot would rob a bank in their personal car and leave it as evidence.”
– Ken Otterbourg
Posting Date: 06-10-2026
