{"id":203366,"date":"2022-03-02T05:24:01","date_gmt":"2022-03-02T13:24:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/?p=203366"},"modified":"2022-03-02T09:52:38","modified_gmt":"2022-03-02T17:52:38","slug":"sore-loser-gets-life-in-prison-for-christmas-day-poker-game-murder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/sore-loser-gets-life-in-prison-for-christmas-day-poker-game-murder\/","title":{"rendered":"Poker Game Murder on Christmas Day Sees Sore Loser Get Life in Prison"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>An Aurora, Colo. man who shot and killed a family friend over a Christmas Day poker game has been sentenced to life in prison without parole.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_203367\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-203367\" data-style=\"width: 1200px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-203367 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/curtis.jpg\" alt=\"Curtis Davis-Barnes\" width=\"1200\" height=\"993\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/curtis.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/curtis-858x710.jpg 858w, https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/curtis-430x356.jpg 430w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/><figcaption  id=\"caption-attachment-203367\"class=\"text-description\">Curtis Davis-Barnes, above, lost between $600 and $700 to the victim before shooting him in the head and chest. (Image: Arapaho County Sheriff\u2019s Office)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Earlier this month, Curtis Davis-Barnes, 38, was convicted by an Arapahoe County jury of first-degree murder in relation to the death of his friend, Aarion Derritt, in the early hours of Christmas Day, 2019.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0The two men had been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/exas-poker-game-killer-eric-norris-pleads-guilty-three-days-into-trial\/\">playing poker<\/a> and dice with several others in the basement of an Aurora property after family and friends had gathered for a holiday celebration, according to prosecutors.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Davis-Barnes lost between $600 and $700 to Derritt during the session. Derritt offered to give some of the money he had won back to Davis-Barnes. But the latter was &#8220;dissatisfied with Mr. Derritt\u2019s generosity,&#8221; according to Senior Deputy District Attorney Casey Brown.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Shot and Robbed<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Instead, Davis-Barnes disappeared upstairs, returning moments later with a handgun. He shot Derritt in the head and chest, took cash from his pockets, and fled from the property in a grey BMW, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n<p>Police were called to the property at around 2 am, where they found Derritt dead from multiple gunshot wounds.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"main-blockquote\"><p><strong>Mr. Derritt was the life of the party, and his family was crushed by the unexpected loss of their beloved son, brother, and father,\u201d <\/strong>Brown said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>He added that Davis-Barnes had eliminated any possibility of Derritt surviving and had spent the remainder of Derritt\u2019s money hiding from the police.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>\u2018Hard to Believe\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s hard to believe that a friendly holiday gathering would end in murder, but that is exactly what happened here,\u201d said District Attorney John Kellner. \u201cThis defendant was unhappy that he was losing a game, so he calmly retrieved a firearm and shot the victim to death. I am glad we were able to obtain justice for the family of the victim, although nothing will bring back Mr. Derritt.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>The suspect was apprehended on the evening of December 31. On February 18, he was convicted of aggravated robbery, felony menacing, and criminal possession of identification documents in addition to murder.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cBy all accounts, Mr. Derritt did nothing to provoke the defendant. He did nothing to instigate a confrontation or incite any violence,\u201d Chief Deputy District Attorney Jason Siers said in a statement. \u201cHe was playing a game, and he ended up shot dead when he should have been able to go home and celebrate Christmas.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An Aurora, Colo. man who shot and killed a family friend over a Christmas Day poker game has been sentenced to life in prison without parole. Earlier this month, Curtis Davis-Barnes, 38, was convicted by an Arapahoe County jury of first-degree murder in relation to the death of his friend, Aarion Derritt, in the early [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":203367,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Sore Loser Gets Life in Prison for Christmas Day Poker Game Murder<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Curtis Davis-Barnes gets life imprisonment without parole for Christmas poker game murder of Aarion Derritt in Aurora, Colorado.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Sore Loser Gets Life in Prison for Christmas Day Poker Game Murder\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Curtis Davis-Barnes gets life imprisonment without parole for Christmas poker game murder of Aarion Derritt in Aurora, Colorado.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/sore-loser-gets-life-in-prison-for-christmas-day-poker-game-murder\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Casino.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Casino.OrgNews\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-03-02T13:24:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-03-02T17:52:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/curtis.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"993\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Philip Conneller\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@casinoorgphilc\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Casino_Org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Philip Conneller\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/sore-loser-gets-life-in-prison-for-christmas-day-poker-game-murder\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/sore-loser-gets-life-in-prison-for-christmas-day-poker-game-murder\/\",\"name\":\"Sore Loser Gets Life in Prison for Christmas Day Poker Game Murder\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/sore-loser-gets-life-in-prison-for-christmas-day-poker-game-murder\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/sore-loser-gets-life-in-prison-for-christmas-day-poker-game-murder\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/curtis.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-03-02T13:24:01+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-03-02T17:52:38+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/58769b72851c8cf117fb58ca150ebf8b\"},\"description\":\"Curtis Davis-Barnes gets life imprisonment without parole for Christmas poker game murder of Aarion Derritt in Aurora, Colorado.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/sore-loser-gets-life-in-prison-for-christmas-day-poker-game-murder\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/sore-loser-gets-life-in-prison-for-christmas-day-poker-game-murder\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/sore-loser-gets-life-in-prison-for-christmas-day-poker-game-murder\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/curtis.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/curtis.jpg\",\"width\":1200,\"height\":993,\"caption\":\"Curtis Davis-Barnes, above, lost between $600 and $700 to the victim before shooting him in the head and chest. 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Contact Philip at philip.conneller@casino.org.\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/muckrack.com\/philip-conneller\",\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/philip-conneller-1495a48\/?originalSubdomain=uk\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/casinoorgphilc\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/author\/phillip-conneller\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Sore Loser Gets Life in Prison for Christmas Day Poker Game Murder","description":"Curtis Davis-Barnes gets life imprisonment without parole for Christmas poker game murder of Aarion Derritt in Aurora, Colorado.","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"follow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Sore Loser Gets Life in Prison for Christmas Day Poker Game Murder","og_description":"Curtis Davis-Barnes gets life imprisonment without parole for Christmas poker game murder of Aarion Derritt in Aurora, Colorado.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/sore-loser-gets-life-in-prison-for-christmas-day-poker-game-murder\/","og_site_name":"Casino.org","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Casino.OrgNews","article_published_time":"2022-03-02T13:24:01+00:00","article_modified_time":"2022-03-02T17:52:38+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":993,"url":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/curtis.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Philip Conneller","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@casinoorgphilc","twitter_site":"@Casino_Org","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Philip Conneller","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/sore-loser-gets-life-in-prison-for-christmas-day-poker-game-murder\/","url":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/sore-loser-gets-life-in-prison-for-christmas-day-poker-game-murder\/","name":"Sore Loser Gets Life in Prison for Christmas Day Poker Game Murder","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/sore-loser-gets-life-in-prison-for-christmas-day-poker-game-murder\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/sore-loser-gets-life-in-prison-for-christmas-day-poker-game-murder\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/curtis.jpg","datePublished":"2022-03-02T13:24:01+00:00","dateModified":"2022-03-02T17:52:38+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/58769b72851c8cf117fb58ca150ebf8b"},"description":"Curtis Davis-Barnes gets life imprisonment without parole for Christmas poker game murder of Aarion Derritt in Aurora, Colorado.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/sore-loser-gets-life-in-prison-for-christmas-day-poker-game-murder\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/sore-loser-gets-life-in-prison-for-christmas-day-poker-game-murder\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/sore-loser-gets-life-in-prison-for-christmas-day-poker-game-murder\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/curtis.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/curtis.jpg","width":1200,"height":993,"caption":"Curtis Davis-Barnes, above, lost between $600 and $700 to the victim before shooting him in the head and chest. (Image: Arapaho County Sheriff\u2019s Office)"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/sore-loser-gets-life-in-prison-for-christmas-day-poker-game-murder\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"News","item":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Poker Game Murder on Christmas Day Sees Sore Loser Get Life in Prison"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/","name":"Casino.org","description":"Latest Casino and Gaming News","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/58769b72851c8cf117fb58ca150ebf8b","name":"Philip Conneller","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/cropped-5-1-96x96.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/cropped-5-1-96x96.png","caption":"Philip Conneller"},"description":"In Philip Conneller\u2019s eight years with Casino.org, he has covered the gaming industry from Las Vegas to Macau and everything in between. He currently focuses his coverage on gaming law, white-collar crime, global money laundering, tribal gaming, politics, and regulation. Philip was the original features editor for poker\u2019s Bluff Magazine and editor for Bluff Europe, which he helped launch. His writing has also been featured in ESPN, Forbes, Time Out, The Sun, and The Daily Star, as well as iGaming Business, eGaming Review, and numerous other industry news and tech websites. His news stories for Casino.org\/news have been linked by The Washington Post, The Daily Mail, People Magazine, and Jimmy Fallon's Tonight Show, among many others. Philip once won $20,000 with 7-2 off-suit. He has been reprimanded for unwittingly playing Elton John\u2019s piano on two separate occasions on both sides of the Atlantic. He became a writer because he is a lousy pianist. Philip lives outside London with his wife and children, where he spends his time agonizing about Arsenal FC. 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