A mom in Denver, Colorado, urged caution after she heard a mysterious voice through her baby’s Nanit monitor, believing the device was hacked.
A California man named Serhat Gumrukcu has been found guilty of orchestrating a murder-for-hire plot to kill his former business partner after their oil deal fell through.
Gumrukcu, 42, is facing a mandatory life sentence for the 2018 abduction and killing of Gregory Davis, according to the US Attorney’s Office. Davis was taken from his home in Vermont and found dead with gunshot wounds at the base of a snowbank.
Gumrukcu, who founded Enochian Biosciences, was found guilty of hatching the plot to kill Davis after he threatened to sue him over a failed oil deal.
Prosecutors believe that Gumrukcu recruited his friend Berk Eratay, who turned to Aron Ethridge to hire hitman Jerry Banks to ultimately kill Davis, according to the US Attorney’s Office.
Banks, 37, arrived at Davis’ home on January 6, 2018, posing as a deputy US marshal, and he told Davis that he needed to come in for questioning. Davis was then abducted from his home and Banks murdered him, according to the prosecutors.
Davis’ body was discovered in a snowbank the following day on January 7, 2018. He was the father to six kids, while his wife was pregnant with their seventh child at the time of his murder.
After Davis was killed, “investigators quickly discovered emails and messaging indicating the tension between Gumrukcu and Davis over the failed oil deal, resulting in Gumrukcu being interviewed twice by the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” per the release.
Investigators ultimately discovered Gumrukcu lied in each interview, and evidence including cellphone data, purchase records, bank documents, emails and messages exposed him and his coconspirators’ involvement in Davis’ kidnapping and murder.
Gumrukcu was later arrested in May 2022 and taken into custody, and he was convicted in April 2025 of murder-for-hire, conspiracy and wire fraud. According to prosecutors, the motive was likely that Davis’ threat to take legal action over their failed oil transaction had the potential to jeopardize Gumrukcu’s bid to gain control of Enochian Biosciences.
“Serhat Gumrukcu tried to hide his role in the murder of Greg Davis by paying one man to pay another man to pay the hitman, who shot and killed Greg Davis on a January night in Vermont,” Acting United States Attorney Michael P. Drescher said, per the release. “Uncovering Gumrukcu’s responsibility for this murder involved years of determined investigation by the men and women of Vermont’s United States Attorney’s Office, working closely with the FBI and the Vermont State Police.”
Banks and Ethridge were arrested in April 2022, and Eratay was arrested shortly after in May 2022.
Banks was sentenced to 200 months in prison with five years of supervision after his release. Meanwhile, Eratay was sentenced to 110 months in prison with three years of supervision after his release and Ethridge was sentenced to 140 months in prison and five years of supervised release.
