Jurors deliberating fate of man accused of killing family, then posting pictures on Facebook
Members of a Wake County jury began deliberations Friday in the trial of Elhadji Seydou Diop, the 55-year-old man charged with the first-degree murders of his wife, Aminata "Ami" Drame, and the couple's 2-year-old daughter, Fatim Diop.
By the end of the day, they had left for the weekend without a verdict.
Prosecutors say Diop, after the killings, posed the bodies of the victims, then took photos and posted them on his Facebook page.
Superior Court Judge Henry Hight told jurors they could consider returning verdicts of first- and second-degree murder, along with voluntary manslaughter for the death of Drame.
In the case of Fatim, Hight told the jurors they could return verdicts of first- and second-degree murder, or determine that Diop is not guilty of his daughter's death.
Police first accused Diop, a native of Senegal, of strangling his wife and daughter to death. But prosecutors now think the daughter was smothered while trapped beneath her parents, who were fighting on the floor of their West Raleigh townhouse.
Prosecutors rested their case Thursday after using the accused man and his wife's cell phone records as evidence to present the jury with a time line of events leading up to a verbal argument over the couple's financial difficulties. The argument turned physical, with the couple wrestling in the kitchen for about 10 minutes. At some point, police say, Diop murdered his wife.
Police officers went to the family’s home after Diop’s niece, who lives in Dakar, Senegal, saw photos of the dead bodies of Drame and Fatim that Diop had apparently posted on his Facebook page.
Closing argument
Did Diop intend to kill his wife and the couple's toddler daughter?
That question was at the crux of closing arguments made by Wake prosecutor Lorrin Freeman and Diop's defense attorney, Charles Caldwell, on Friday morning.
Freeman told jurors that the strangulation Drame endured at the hands of her husband fractured the cartilage of her larynx and blocked the flow of blood to her brain, causing her to lose consciousness before she died by continuing to emit a pressure hold on her.
"For most of us, it's difficult to understand how a husband can murder his wife and daughter, pose them on the floor and not call 911. That goes to intent," said Freeman. She later added, "The defense is going to try to make you feel sorry for the defendant, who killed his wife and daughter and posed their pictures on Facebook like trophies."
Freeman said the first calls and text messages Diop made were to family members in Senegal, who he told he was "sorry."
The prosecutor asked the jury members "what did Ami do" to warrant such a violent response from her husband? "I would say absolutely nothing," she said.
Evidence provided by the state medical examiner also gave good reason for jurors not to believe Diop's account of what happened that day in the townhouse. The prosecutor noted abrasions on Fatim's face that indicated that while she may have been smothered underneath her parents' combined weight of 300 pounds, the child could have also been "smothered with a pillow or a hand."
A different narrative
Caldwell offered the jurors a dramatically different narrative while arguing for a voluntary manslaughter verdict in Drame's death and not guilty for the parental struggle that killed the couple's child.
Drame and their daughter had returned home late that morning of April 5 from shopping. She had laid down her purse, taken off her wig and was in the kitchen about to cook.
Diop was just outside the kitchen, replacing linoleum tiles on the floor. An argument erupted between the couple over money. They "tussled" in the kitchen. Fatim, who was also in the kitchen, fell on her back. Drame fell on her daughter's stomach and "maybe pulled Elhadji down with her," Caldwell said.
Caldwell said the husband and wife continued "rolling around," but Diop "realized the child was there" and momentarily halted the struggle with his wife and tried to pick his daughter up.
"He said, 'it didn't seem to me that Ami didn't realize the child was injured,'" Caldwell said, recounting what his client told a detective who visited him at the hospital after he tried to commit suicide.
Caldwell said despite Fatim being unresponsive, the wife continued the physical altercation and her husband grabbed her in a headlock and used "excessive force to stop her."
"Elhadji is holding her in a headlock, trying to make her stop," Caldwell said. "Trying to make her come back."
Caldwell said that far from the posed bodies being a "trophy," Diop sat watching the bodies of his wife and child for hours before he "created a shrine to the two most beautiful people in the world."
"This is what was posted on the Facebook page. This pose. This shrine," Caldwell said about the photo of the victims posted at 3:06 p.m.
Caldwell said in addition to slashing his neck and cutting his wrists, Diop tried to kill himself by drinking a combination of rat and roach poison and threw up all over the townhouse.
Freeman argued against a voluntary manslaughter verdict in Drame's death, saying that such a verdict is more appropriate in cases that involved the heat of sudden passion.
"Why were they fighting?" Freeman asked the jurors. "Because she was talking too much and nagging him about getting a job. Somehow the defendant's actions are to be excused because of the anger" that consumed him?
Caldwell at the beginning of his argument told the jury that "murder is a big word. It implies evil. Malicious intent. I'm going to kill you."
But he said there was no history of assault in the marriage. Friends and family members said the couple seemed to like each other and were "regular people."
"I have an interesting question," Caldwell said at the end of his presentation to the jurors. "If Ami had survived and Elhadji and Ami were here today, who would be on trial for Fatim's death?"
Thomasi McDonald: 919-829-4533, @thomcdonald
This story was originally published March 23, 2018 at 1:17 PM with the headline "Jurors deliberating fate of man accused of killing family, then posting pictures on Facebook."