Asylum seeker who celebrated after stabbing hotel worker guilty of murder
An asylum seeker who followed a hotel worker to the train station at the end of her shift and stabbed her more than 20 times with a screwdriver has been convicted of murder.
Deng Chol Majek, who is from Sudan and claims to be 19 despite German authorities saying he is actually 27, celebrated after killing Rhiannon Skye Whyte on October 20 last year.
CCTV footage tracked him as he followed her from Walsall’s Park In n hotel, where she worked and he was living, to Bescot Stadium Station.
Majek stabbed Rhiannon ‘over and over again’ in a frenzied attack then ‘casually’ left her for dead to drink and dance with friends while emergency services rushed to the scene.
Rhiannon died three days later in hospital, having suffered a fatal brain injury.
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Majek, who was assisted in court by an Arabic interpreter, denied murder, claiming the figure caught on CCTV at the station and then visiting local shops to buy beer in ‘distinctive and identical’ clothing is not him, and that findings of Rhiannon’s DNA under his fingernails is wrong.
Prosecutor Michelle Heeley KC called his defence ‘ridiculous’ and ‘laughable’.
Jurors found Majek guilty of murder today after just two hours’ deliberations following a two-week trial.
‘For no reason – he’s taken her away for nothing’
The family of Rhiannon Whyte say the year since her death has been ‘hell on earth’ – but they remain focused on keeping alive the memory of their quirky and caring loved one who “would always put everyone else before herself.”
In a pooled interview, Rhiannon’s mother and one of her sisters also spoke of the heartache of having to break the news of the hotel worker’s death to her five-year-old son.
Siobhan Whyte described how she pledged to get justice for her daughter, as she lay critically ill in hospital in the days after being stabbed, while Rhiannon’s sister Alex Whyte said the strength and positivity shown by family members over the past year was also something they had promised her.
Rhiannon’s mum Siobhan said it had been ‘hell, hell on earth’ – adding: ‘The worst part is not only losing her. It’s the nieces and nephews and her son.
‘They’re struggling because they miss her. For no reason – he’s taken her away for nothing.’
Asked how they had coped having to tell Rhiannon’s young son, Alex broke down as she recalled how she had picked him up for school before a half-term holiday and took him home to explain what had happened.
Siobhan said: ‘He asked if Rhiannon was okay because he knew that we were at the hospital. Alex had to explain to him.’
Alex said: ‘I initially explained to him that she had a poorly brain, and we tried really hard, and the doctors tried really hard, but they couldn’t fix her brain, so she had to go to heaven.
‘The scream that left that child that day will haunt me for the rest of my life.’
Siobhan added: ‘Alex had to explain that it was a bad man. I’ve never heard a child cry like that and I never want to hear a child cry like that again.
‘We had to lay in bed with him, didn’t we, that night and comfort him.’
The family members said Rhiannon’s son, who the family do not wish to be named in reports, just wanted stories about his mother and how much she loved him.
Siobhan added: ‘He loves being with family. He loves being with his aunties, his uncles, because they talk about her and then they take his mind off it. But how do you explain to a five, now six-year-old, that? We can’t. She’s just gone to heaven.’
Alex continued: ‘We always say we are so lucky to have him because we’ve always got a piece of her. Although she’s in every single one of us. He is her. So we get to watch her grow all over again and he will achieve everything she ever wanted.’
Family members’ strength since Rhiannon’s death was what Rhiannon would have wanted, Alex said, telling Sky News: ‘This is everything that Rhiannon would have ever wanted. The strength that we’ve kept as a family, the positivity that is instilled in our children and in her son. We promised her in the hospital we were going to live the way she wanted us to live.’
Opening the case to jurors, Ms Heeley told them: ‘The person who attacked Rhiannon carried out a vicious and frenzied attack.
‘They meant to seriously hurt Rhiannon, to kill her, and they carried out the attack by stabbing her repeatedly in the head with an offensive weapon, a Phillips head screwdriver.’
She said Rhiannon had worked at the hotel for about three months, helping with things including cleaning and serving food, while the defendant was resident in room 309.
Ms Heeley added: ‘During the evening one of Rhiannon’s co-workers noticed this defendant. He seemed to be staring at Rhiannon and the women she was working with.
‘No one could recall any particular issue that would have caused him to act in that way. There had been an issue about some broken biscuits with some of the residents but nothing serious.
‘What is clear from the CCTV is that the defendant was hanging around the reception area, staring at Rhiannon throughout the evening.’
Hotel chef Louise Brittle told the court she saw a tall, dark-skinned man sitting at a high table, and wearing a silver top with the hood up, during her shift from 2pm to 10pm on October 20.
She said: ‘He was sitting relaxed in a high chair with one arm on the table and his foot on a bench… just staring.
‘He was staring towards the bar area. I came out of the kitchen and I noticed him straight away.
‘He was just staring through us … like eyes wide open and he just couldn’t take his eyes off any of us.
‘I said how scary it felt. The way he was staring at us.’
Shortly after, Majek changed into a distinctive jacket and sandals and then waited around the reception area where Rhiannon was.
Ms Heeley said: ‘CCTV tracks the defendant all the way. He followed her from the hotel and to the station.
‘He had been hanging around waiting for her to leave and waited until she was on her own before he followed her.’
Ms Whyte called a friend at 11.04pm, the court heard, and she was caught on CCTV at 11.08pm with Majek following two minutes later.
Majek then ‘closed the gap’ to 90 seconds and then 30 seconds as she reached the deserted platform at 11.13pm, the court heard.
Ms Heeley added: ‘It was then that the prosecution say that this defendant attacked her. Rhiannon had been talking to her friend.
‘But it went silent before (the friend) heard a scream, then another scream. The phone went dead at 11.19pm.
‘Shortly after that this defendant could be seen running back up the stairs from the platform. He had an object lit up in his hand – that was Rhiannon’s mobile phone.’
Ms Whyte’s friend, having heard screams, called the police, who contacted the hotel, who sent one of their employees to the station.
The train that Rhiannon had been due to catch pulled in at 11.24pm and the driver saw a figure slumped on the platform.
Ms Heeley continued: ‘The guard tried to help Rhiannon, as did the employee who had come from the hotel.
‘But sadly she was too seriously injured and nothing could be done to save her. She passed away on October 23, having never regained consciousness.
‘The defendant did not go straight back to the hotel, he went to a local shop and bought himself a drink first, arriving back in the hotel at 13 minutes past midnight.
‘In between the station and the hotel he had thrown Rhiannon’s phone into a river. Once at the hotel he was seen dancing and laughing, clearly excited about what he had done.’
In her closing speech, Ms Heeley told jurors: ‘The suggestion that it is anyone other than this defendant is just ridiculous.
‘He changes his shoes, from the bloodstained sandals to white trainers, and then he goes outside with his speaker and dances.
‘He is celebrating, his mood has changed from that prolonged scowl in the cafe before the murder to dancing and joy after the murder.
‘It is utterly callous.’
Speaking after the verdict, Carla Harris, senior crown prosecutor from the Crown Prosecution Service, said: ‘Rhiannon Whyte should have been able to go to work and come home safely – but Deng Chol Majek robbed her of her life and future.
‘He attacked her for no reason and callously left her bleeding on a station platform. He then appeared to rejoice in his actions, having been caught laughing and dancing on footage an hour later.
‘Although nothing can bring Rhiannon back, I hope these convictions provide some sense of justice to her family and friends.’
Majek will be sentenced at a later date.
Mr Justice Soole told the court it would be necessary to verify the defendant’s age before deciding the minimum term he must serve.
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