There was no dispute Jamie Lee Dolheguy killed Maulin Rathod, an Indian student. But the jury had to wrangle with evidence of her profound mental health problems, borne from a childhood of appalling abuse and neglect.
Tragically for Maulin Rathod, his message to Jamie Lee Dolheguy landed just minutes after she was exchanging heated texts with her carers.
She then wrapped the cord of a sex toy around his neck and telephoned police to report she had killed a man. She told an officer, ‘‘It feels so good.’’ But also, ‘‘I don’t want to be a killer.’’On Thursday a Supreme Court jury found Dolheguy, 20, not guilty of murder but guilty of the alternative charge of manslaughter after deliberating across seven days.
Later she told police she had an urge to kill. ‘‘I knew I was going to kill him if he came over,’’ she said.But the jury had to wrangle with evidence of Dolheguy’s profound mental health problems, borne from a childhood of appalling abuse and neglect. Defence counsel Sharon Lacy told the jury Dolheguy had no functioning family as support and her mental state on July 23 last year was chaotic. Inside her mind ‘‘was a torrent of terrifying thoughts and emotions’’.
Later, she told police she ignored his tapping – the signal they agreed upon if he wanted her to stop – and choked him until he became a dead weight. She then choked him with the sex toy cord fearing that he would regain consciousness. ‘‘She undertook a series of steps, some preparation and plans and decisions along the way that would enable her to overpower him physically ... she needed that advantage to kill him and that’s what she did.’’
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