Corrina Mehiel was a budding artist who specialized in work that provided social commentary. She had turned abandoned bicycles and broken parking meters into works of art and crafted pieces that drew attention to water contamination.
On Monday, a D.C. Superior Court jury heard opening statements from attorneys and prosecutors followed by emotional testimony from family and friends in the first day of the trial of a homeless D.C. man charged in Mehiel’s killing.
Nearly a week after Mehiel was found dead on March 21, 2017, authorities arrested El Hadji Alpha Madiou Toure, 29. He is charged with first-degree murder, kidnapping, sexual assault, robbery, burglary and other offenses. Federal prosecutors also added an enhanced penalty saying the killing was “heinous, atrocious and cruel.” If convicted, Toure faces life in prison without parole.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeff Nestler told jurors that Toure did not know Mehiel and targeted her for robbery. He said the defendant forced his way into Mehiel’s apartment, sexually assaulted her and then killed her.
Toure’s DNA was found on Mehiel’s body and on the leggings, authorities said. Nestler also said Mehiel’s DNA was found inside Toure’s backpack, which authorities found at the time of his arrest. Authorities said a security video showed Toure using Mehiel’s bank card.
Toure’s public defenders say their client did not kill Mehiel and that authorities were pressured to make an arrest quickly because of media attention on the case.
Defense attorney Emily Stirba said that the Mehiel attack was similar to another that occurred a little more than two weeks earlier. In that case, the victim also was sexually assaulted and bound.
“Mr. Toure is innocent, but detectives had tunnel vision and were pressured to close this case. You will see that the previous attack had the same patterns as Ms. Mehiel’s attack,” Stirba said.
Stirba added that after Toure’s arrest, detectives investigated to see whether Toure could have been involved in the earlier attack. Stirba said they discovered that Toure had signed himself into a homeless shelter run by Catholic Charities at the time of the attack.
No arrests had been made in the sexual assault case. Nestler said in his opening statement that it was unrelated to Mehiel’s killing.
Toure’s attorneys also note that no weapon used in the killing was found and that there were no injuries to Toure at the time of his arrest.
Stirba suggested that Toure and Mehiel had a consensual sexual relationship. She said that there was no connection between her client’s use of Mehiel’s credit and ATM cards and her slaying.
According to court documents, Toure drove Mehiel’s car and repeatedly used her bank card in Maryland and the District.
Police said they found paperwork with Toure that showed he had purchased a Ford Taurus after Mehiel’s death, and had made a $1,000 down payment.
Mehiel’s body was found in the apartment where she was staying in the 600 block of 14th Street NE, near the H Street corridor.
Mehiel’s family members sat in Judge Juliet McKenna’s courtroom on Monday, some wiping away tears as a recording was played of the 911 call from Mehiel’s boss, artist Mel Chin. He had gone to search for her when she failed to show up for work.
Chin testified how the 911 operator asked him to determine whether the woman needed CPR. He told the operator, after touching Mehiel’s leg, that her body was cold. “It doesn’t look good,” Chin told the operator. “No. She’s not breathing. She’s cold. We need someone here. I think someone killed her.”
Mehiel’s father, Ronald, testified that his daughter earned her undergraduate and graduate degrees in art and chose to work on pieces that had a social component as an effort to bring change.
On the Sunday before she was to drive to back to North Carolina, Mehiel said that he spoke to his daughter and that she was excited about returning home. “I said, ‘I love you and be careful.’ ” That was the last time they spoke.