Jamie Lee Dolheguy acquitted of dating app murder
A sadistic teen who strangled a man she met on a dating app with the cord of a vibrator has been acquitted of his cold-blooded murder.
Law & Order
Don't miss out on the headlines from Law & Order. Followed categories will be added to My News.
A sadistic teen who once believed she was a werewolf has been acquitted of the cold-blooded murder of a man she met online then lured to his death with the promise of sex.
Medical experts agreed that Jamie Lee Dolheguy, now 20, was one of the most psychiatrically damaged people they had ever encountered.
Even prosecutors conceded her significant psychological issues that were caused almost entirely by a deprived childhood marred by heinous abuse and neglect that saw her leave her family at age 10.
But they said when it came to the killing of 24-year-old Maulin Rathod, those issues could not be blamed.
Instead it was Dolheguy’s attention seeking, “sadistic tendencies”, and “brooding rage” that boiled over on July 23 last year that led to the killing.
Today a jury of 11 disagreed, after deliberating for a week following a mammoth month-long Supreme Court trial.
Dolheguy invited Mr Rathod, a student and a part-time truck driver, to her Sunbury home after the pair met on dating site Plenty of Fish.
As she sat waiting for him to arrive she googled: “I’m going to kill someone tonight for fun.”
It was the first of three internet searches Ms Dolheguy made that night.
She followed that first search by searching “I’m going to kill someone tonight help” and “I will kill someone tonight, I want to commit murder”
When he arrived at the home, Dolheguy warned him she was psychopathic and dangerous before the pair agreed to take part in sexual “choke play”.
They agreed he would tap her if he became uncomfortable, but when he did, Dolheguy choked him harder.
She then strangled him with the cord of a vibrator to make sure he was dead.
Dolheguy immediately phoned police and confessed to the killing, telling them she had homicidal urges she couldn’t control.
“Eventually he stopped moving, and he just kept making breathing sounds, so I rolled him over onto his tummy and just wrapped the cord around his throat”.
“I knew I was going to kill him if he came over”, she said.
Dolheguy presented with such complex psychiatric problems that she was housed in a purpose-built home under the watch of two carers 24 hours a day.
But an executive decision in February 2018 meant Ms Dolheguy was left to live alone.
Hours before the killing Dolheguy messaged a support worker to say she had forgotten her medication and was worried about the effect that could have.
She was advised to put her “emergency plan” into action.
“I felt good for some reason. Scared but good. Cause I’ve suffered so much in my life that I feel like I’m taking back what was once rightfully mine. Happiness, family, friends,” she later told police.
“Everything that was ever taken away from me I’m like, “I’m taking it back.” I’m – I’m always jealous of every person I see. see a thin girl walk along the beach and I wanna torture them because they’re so pretty.
“I’m jealous of every human, I don’t think any human deserves to be happy if I can’t be happy.”
Crown prosecutor Pat Bourke said while Dolheguy’s account was “sad and distressing” it was not a defence to murder.
“They may well be reasons why she did that. We all do things for reasons, good reasons, bad reasons, justifiable reasons, understandable reasons, strange reasons. But doing something for a reason tells us that you meant to do it,” he told the jury during his closing address.
“It doesn’t have to make sense, it doesn’t have to be a good reason. Here, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to take this anger out on Mr Rathod; he was not the cause of her unhappiness, he was a complete stranger, a complete innocent in all of this.”
Dolheguy never disputed killing Mr Rathod, only that she intended to murder him.
Mr Bourke pointed to her twisted Google searches and post offence conduct as evidence of a sustained and determined attack.
But Dolheguy’s lawyers argued she never wanted to kill, saying the Google searches were a cry for help.
“Ms Dolheguy is not a murderer,” Sharon Lacy said.
“She’s a deeply troubled girl. A girl whose mind was a torrent of terrifying thoughts and emotions.”
Forensic psychiatrist Professor Andrew Carroll, called by Dolheguy’s lawyers, told the court Dolheguy had “sadistic tendencies”.
MORE NEWS
YOUTH CRIME SKYROCKETS, BREAKING RECORDS
TRUCKIE DIES AFTER BEING FLUNG IN COLLISION
“That is, the enjoyment of harming others. That’s just the way it is and it’s troubling that a young woman would have those considerations, but that’s the way it is,” Mr Burke said.
“Sadistic tendencies as part of your personality makeup, part of a personality disorder is not a defence to murder. It just might mean that you enjoyed it.”
Prof. Carroll said Dolheguy was in now way delusional, paranoid or hallucinating.
She was however suffering a severe personality disorder.
Dolheguy was instead convicted of a single count of manslaughter.
She will be sentenced at a later date.