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August 18, 2008
‘Not Guilty’ for Jamaican accused of killing transgendered sex partner
Acquitted of murdering a 39 year old transgendered woman, Kellie Telesford in her Thornton Heath flat last November, Shanniel Hyatt is adamant about his innocence.
Reporting that he was unaware of the former florist and beautician's
actual gender until being informed by police upon his arrest, the 18 year old Jamaican was accused of killing Telesford in a state of rage.
The prosecution told a jury at the Old Bailey trial, that after spending an intimate night with the transgendered woman, Hyatt killed her in anger once he realized she was indeed a man who had undergone a sex change. Prosecutor Sally O’Neil presented facts, gleaned from video surveillance recordings, that the teenager left Telesford’s flat at 6am on November 19, 2007, having stolen her public transit pass, mobile telephone and other electronic equipment.
Agreeing that he was in fact a petty thief, the 18 year old insisted that he left Telesford alive and well. His defense attorney, Joanna Greenburg refuted the murder allegations saying that the victim was a biological man and would have certainly used his innate strength to fight off an attempt at strangulation. There were no signs of a struggle in that regard.
The jury was led by Greenburg, to consider alternate explanations for Telesford's death, like kinky sex games with some other 'date' or even that her demise was self-inflicted. The court heard that the transgendered woman was accustomed to taking home men she had only briefly dated for sexual encounters.
Hyatt, a father of one child, had only met Telesford hours before ending up in her South London flat and bed. She was found strangled three days after their meeting.
Although off the hook for murder, Hyatt is being held on a separate immigration matter.