Second murder trial begins for two men charged in 2018 St. Croix bar shooting
Enock Cole and Jiovani Smith face retrial after a mistrial in October 2025 for the fatal shooting at Castaways Bar on St. Croix. Both face life in prison if convicted.
Retrial underway for defendants accused of killing bar patron during armed robbery
Enock Cole and Jiovani Smith are facing a second trial in District Court on St. Croix, stthomassource.com reports, more than seven years after they allegedly shot and killed a man during a gunpoint robbery at Castaways Bar in Estate Solitude.
The two men are accused of fatally shooting 33-year-old Derek Cribb on Nov. 14, 2018, while robbing an employee of the bar at gunpoint. Federal charges against both defendants include robbery causing interference with commerce, weapons violations, and use of a firearm resulting in death. They also face local first-degree murder charges in connection with Cribb's death.
The first trial ended in a mistrial on Oct. 1, 2025. Jury selection for the retrial took place Thursday in the courtroom of District Court Judge Timothy Savage.
Defense lawyers filed three motions between Thursday and Friday. Two of the motions seek to exclude evidence put forward by the U.S. Attorney's Office — one targeting recordings of jailhouse phone calls allegedly involving Cole, and another seeking to bar a social media photo of Smith in which he appears to be wearing a sweatshirt similar to one witnesses said a gunman wore at the bar on the night of the shooting. The third motion asks the court to draft jury instructions in a manner that avoids juror confusion.
Smith is already serving a prison sentence for the 2020 shooting death of a teenage girl in an unrelated case.
Both defendants face a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted. At one stage during pre-trial preparations, prosecutors indicated that a murder committed in the course of a federal armed robbery could make Cole and Smith eligible for the death penalty. Government lawyers withdrew that position in 2025, ahead of the first trial.
Source: Google News VI — Crime