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Bowie State Student Acquitted In Roommate’s Murder

A jury acquitted the Bowie State University student charged with fatally slashing her roommate’s throat last year.

Jurors needed just 2 ½ hours of deliberations on Thursday before finding 20-year-old Alexis Simpson not guilty of first-degree murder and other charges stemming from the September 2011 slaying of Dominique Frazier.

Simpson had maintained all along that she was acting in self-defense when she struck and killed Frazier in the suite the two shared. She declined comment following the verdict.

“Clearly, the jury felt she acted in self-defense,” Christopher Griffiths, Simpson’s attorney, told the Washington Post.

Frazier’s family did not react audibly to the verdict and left the courthouse with sheriff’s deputies as escorts. One deputy turned reporters to another exit as the family left.

Prince George’s State’s Attorney Angela Alsobrooks said she was “absolutely stunned” by the verdict. She added that though she didn’t know what jurors were thinking, Simpson was a “sympathetic defendant.”

Simpson testified she went back to her dorm room on the week of homecoming in 2011, where she saw Frazier and her friends in the room and immediately felt uncomfortable.

She says she went to the bathroom to get ready for the night’s Homecoming festivities. When her phone rang, she asked Frazier to turn down music she was playing on her iPod. Simpson described a scene in which Frazier and her friends became aggressive, and began pushing her and pulling her hair.

Simpson began to cry as she explained how she was able to break free from the women and went to her drawer to get her inhaler. Feeling threatened, she said grabbed a pocket knife instead.

“I started swinging it,” Simpson told the court. “So they could stay away from me.”

That’s when she saw blood flying and noticed Frazier had been cut in the throat.

“I was scared,” she said. “I started to panic. Foam was coming out of her mouth.”

She said she started to panic, and then left the scene for her boyfriend’s house in Mitchellville.

Jurors could have convicted Simpson of charges ranging from first-degree murder to involuntary manslaughter, depending on whether they felt her conduct was premeditated or intentional, and to what degree – if any – she acted in self-defense. Even if they concluded she acted in partial self-defense, they could have convicted Simpson of voluntary manslaughter. Defense attorneys had argued that she should be acquitted of all the charges because she acted only to protect herself.

Prosecutors had accused Simpson of instigating two fights with Frazier, the second of which led to the stabbing.

Dressed in a gray pantsuit, Simpson, 20, sobbed loudly during portions of her testimony. She said the trouble with Frazier, 18, began almost immediately after Simpson moved into the shared suite at Bowie State, having just transferred from Clark Atlanta University.

Simpson said she felt “intimidated” and asked to change rooms. She said a property manager said that no others were available and that, should she move out, she would be charged $600. The manager denied that in court.

She said she began staying at her mom’s home in District Heights and at her boyfriend’s home in Mitchellville but returned to the suite before Bowie State’s homecoming.

Griffiths said Simpson now plans to “spend time with her family and readjust.”

“She’s been through a lot,” Griffiths said.

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