the shooting agreed that a man in a white shirt had struck Young and then shot MacPhail. On August 19, Coles told Savannah Police he had seen Davis with a .38-caliber pistol, and that Davis had assaulted Young. Coles failed to tell police that he owned a .38-caliber weapon and was in possession of that weapon on the night of the shooting. The same evening as the shooting, Davis drove to Atlanta with his sister. In the early morning of August 20, 1989, Savannah Police searched the Davis home but all they found was a pair of Davis's shorts in a clothes dryer. Davis's family began negotiating with police, motivated by concerns about his safety. On August 23, 1989, Davis returned to Savannah, surrendered himself to police and was charged with MacPhail's murder. The murder weapon was never recovered, and Mr. Coles told police that he had lost his .38-caliber weapon before it could be tested. Background of Troy Davis Davis was the eldest child of Korean War veteran Joseph Davis and hospital worker Virginia Davis. The couple divorced when Davis was very young, and Davis grew up with four siblings in the predominantly black, middle-class neighborhood of Cloverdale in Savannah, Georgia. Davis attended Windsor Forest High School, where one teacher described him as a poor student. He dropped out in his junior year so he could drive his disabled younger sister to her rehabilitation. Davis obtained his high-school equivalency diploma from Richard Arnold Education Center in 1987. A teacher noted that he attended school regularly but seemed to lack discipline. Davis's nickname at the time was "Rah," or "Rough as Hell," but some neighbors reported that it did not reflect his behavior; they described him as a "straight-up fellow" who acted as a big brother to local children. In July 1988, Davis pleaded guilty to carrying a concealed weapon; he was fined $250 as part of a plea agreement in which a charge of possession of a gun with altered serial numbers was dropped. In August 1988, Davis began work as a drill technician at a plant that manufactured railroad crossing gates. His boss commented that while Davis was a likeable and good worker who appeared to have positive life goals, his job attendance was poor; by Christmas 1988, he had stopped coming to work. Davis returned to the job twice in the following months but neither time remained