[size=11pt][tt]An Oakland man should be found guilty of first-degree murder for raping and strangling an 11-year-old girl before dumping her body in a field eight years ago, a prosecutor told an Alameda County jury today.
Deputy District Attorney John Brouhard told jurors that Alex Demolle, 32, brutally killed Jaquita Mack in Oakland's Fruitvale District on July 23, 1999, before using his next-door neighbor's car to drive her body to a weedy field, where it was found the next day.
"Where did Jaquita Mack's quest for fun take her? We know now," Brouhard told a jury of six men and six women in his closing argument in the death-penalty trial in Oakland.
"It left her on her back, on the floor of the defendant's apartment. It left her mouth full of vomit," Brouhard said. The attack left with her with the defendant's DNA in her body and nail marks embedded in her neck, he said.
"And it left her dead," said Brouhard, juxtaposing a picture of a smiling Jaquita next to one showing her "on a slab in the coroner's office." "Some fun for Jaquita Mack that summer," Brouhard said.
Demolle has been charged with murder with the special circumstances of rape and lewd acts with a child. If convicted, he could be sentenced to death by lethal injection. He has been in custody since his arrest two weeks after the slaying.
One of Demolle's two lawyers, well-known criminal defense attorney Daniel Horowitz, is expected to give his closing argument this afternoon. The defense has argued that the prosecution tried to show that the defendant committed sodomy, but that there was no evidence of that.
Brouhard said there was overwhelming evidence that Demolle had raped and strangled the girl, including confessions in interviews with police and district attorney's inspectors and remorseful letters he wrote to his family and that of Jacquita's.
"I was just trying to squeeze. I just wanted it all to end," Demolle told police, according to Brouhard, calling the statements "textbook deliberation" and therefore a case of first-degree murder.
The prosecutor said Demolle was afraid of being identified by Jaquita and also wanted to avoid getting his family embarrassed.
During the attack, Jaquita was petrified, whimpering, her face was wet with tears, Brouhard said, citing statements Demolle made to police. She died with her eyes open.
Jaquita, who had dreams of becoming president of the United States and sang in her church choir, would have entered the sixth grade at Schilling Elementary School in Newark, where she lived with an aunt. She died exactly a month before she would have turned 12.
An uncle last saw Jaquita riding her bike, with its pink pedals and green handlebars, near the B&W Market at Fruitvale Avenue and East 27th Street. The prosecutor showed jurors the bike today.
Demolle's home, in a seven-unit brick-and-stucco building next-door to the market, was within sight of Jaquita's father's home, where the girl had been staying for the summer. Jaquita did not know Demolle, but he may have seen her riding her bike in the neighborhood, family members have said.
Demolle, a former office-supply warehouse worker, was unemployed at the time of his arrest.[/tt][/size] |
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I fucking hate the semantics involved in this shit. No evidence of sodomy? So the fuck WHAT? What does that matter in light of this situation? God, I always wonder how these supposed human beings can even attempt to defend these sons of bitches in court. 
