🔴 ASYLUM SEEKER ‘PARTIED’ HOURS AFTER HOTEL MURDER
Jurors hear shocking claims that asylum seeker Deng Chol Majek laughed, smoked & drank with friends just hours after brutally stabbing hotel worker Rhiannon Whyte.
An asylum seeker accused of stabbing a hotel worker to death was seen dancing and laughing in a car park hours later, a murder trial has heard. Jurors were told Deng Chol Majek, from Sudan, appeared to be “having a good time” while drinking and smoking with friends shortly after the alleged attack which left Rhiannon Skye Whyte, 27, fatally injured.
Prosecutors say Majek, who claims to be 19, followed Ms Whyte from the Park Inn hotel in Walsall — then used to house asylum seekers — to Bescot Stadium railway station shortly after 11pm on 20 October last year. CCTV footage is said to show him tailing her moments before she was stabbed more than 20 times with a screwdriver. Ms Whyte was taken to hospital but died three days later from a puncture wound that penetrated her skull and brain stem.
Hotel housing officer Tyler English, who worked at the Park Inn, told Wolverhampton Crown Court that Majek — known to residents as “DC” — had seemed withdrawn earlier that evening. “Normally, what I would do is go around and check the morale of everybody that’s there,” he said. “That’s when I noticed he wasn’t, I guess, in the best of moods. So I just asked are you OK? There was no response.”
Mr English said he later went to the railway station after being alerted by two other residents that Ms Whyte had been attacked. He placed her in the recovery position and remained on the scene to assist police and railway staff before returning to the hotel.
“Shortly after Rhiannon had been taken to hospital I went back to the hotel, again just doing due diligence,” he said. “That’s when I saw ‘DC’ again with a few others. It was in the parking lot near the side of the hotel.”
Asked by prosecutor Michelle Heeley KC what Majek was doing at that stage, Mr English replied: “At this point it was just like drinking, smoking and just chatting amongst his group of friends.”
He added that music was playing through a speaker and the group appeared to be “almost like having a good time in a sense”. When asked how Majek’s mood compared with earlier in the evening, he said: “His mood was definitely a lot better seeing him in the parking lot versus earlier in the evening. I went up to the group including him and kind of like shook their hands.”
During cross-examination by defence counsel Gurdeep Garcha KC, Mr English confirmed that Majek appeared “perfectly happy to be seen in a public place”. The witness also told jurors the defendant could hold “fluent” conversations in English despite being assisted in court by an Arabic interpreter.
The court also heard medical evidence from consultant forensic pathologist Dr Brett Lockyer, who said Ms Whyte had sustained numerous “criss-cross-shaped” wounds consistent with the use of a screwdriver. There were 19 puncture injuries to her head, 11 of which penetrated the skull and one of which entered the brain.
Asked to assess the level of force used to inflict the fatal wound, Dr Lockyer said: “I can only opine that the level of force would be at least moderate but I cannot exclude the possibility of more severe force.”
Prosecutors allege Majek celebrated following the attack and showed no sign of distress after Ms Whyte was taken to hospital. The jury was told that his behaviour in the hours after the stabbing stood in sharp contrast to his earlier mood inside the hotel.
Majek denies murder and possession of an offensive weapon. The trial continues.
