Photo: Justice for Mujey/Facebook
A former Michigan school groundskeeper who wasconvictedof killing a 16-year-old student who accused him of rape was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole Monday.
In February, Quinn James, 43, was convicted of premeditated first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and felony homicide in the slaying of Mujey Dumbuya.
Mujey and her family had moved to the US from Sierra Leone to start a new life.
“I feel horrible for the family having to go through this, especially when they come to this country looking for a new and better life and this happens to them,” he says. “A murder case is always painful, but that probably makes it even more painful.”
At James’ sentencing, Mujey’s aunt, Jainya Sonnohsaid, said her niece had been looking forward to her first prom.
“This would have been her prom dress, that would’ve been her makeup and that would’ve been her hairdo,” she said, according toMLive. “She wanted to ride a limo with her friend … but instead she got a casket, instead she got a hearse.”
Cory Morse/The Grand Rapids Press via AP
Mujey’s mother Fatmata Corneh said James didn’t deserve to be a part of the community.
“You destroyed her life and then you turn around and take her away from me forever,” she said, MLive reports. “It is hard for me to forgive him. People like this don’t deserve to be in a community. I know Mujey is in heaven and she is smiling, because she wants him behind bars all of the time.”
Mujey, a student at East Kentwood High School, near Grand Rapids, disappeared Jan. 24, 2018. Her strangled body was discovered four days later in a wooded area in Kalamazoo. Her clothes had been soaked in bleach,WWMTreports.
During his murder trial, prosecutors argued that James and acquaintance Gerald Bennett kidnapped Mujey from her bus stop and killed her so that she wouldn’t testify against him at his impending rape trial.
“It doesn’t matter who grabbed her off the street or who squeezed the life out of her little body,” prosecutor Kellee Koncki said in her opening statement, according toMLive.com. “The defendant is the reason she’s dead.”
Bennett was charged with one count of conspiracy to commit murder and is scheduled for trial on May 13. His attorney could not be reached for comment.
Defense attorney Jonathan Schildgen said that prior to Mujey’s death, James told police he’d had sexual contact with the teen, though he said he believed she was older. “[It] doesn’t do him much good to get rid of a witness that he’d already told a detective he’d slept with,” Schildgen said.
Jennifer Twilling, an East Kentwood High School guidance counselor, testified during the trial that she was with Mujey when she spoke to the police and that prior to that, “she told me on multiple occasions she knew the right thing, but she was afraid,” Twilling said, according toWWMT.
Twilling also testified that Mujey was fearful that “something would happen to her,” WWMT reports.
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During the trial, prosecutors played calls James made from jail to his fiancée, according toWWMT. In one call, which occurred after his arrest for Mujey’s rape, James allegedly told his fiancée that the charges would be dropped if the teen didn’t show up to testify against him.
“You know what’s crazy … the whole thing will be over if she doesn’t show up,” James said, according to WWMT.
source: people.com
