‘A demon did it’: Jury finds Derek Ward guilty of rape and murder of cousin
A demon didn’t do it. A cousin did.
A Charlotte jury — after deliberating for the whole day Wednesday — found Derek Ward guilty of first-degree murder and first-degree rape after a unique week-and-a-half-long trial resting at the intersection of the paranormal, religion and mental health.
Ward was accused of raping and strangling his cousin, Brittini Ward, to death on May 5, 2010.
Ward hadn’t met Brittini or her family before, but he messaged her sister on Facebook and soon after showed up to her home. He was with another cousin — someone the family did know. But the two came uninvited and unannounced. Ward and the other cousin stayed and left, eating, playing games and going on walks with the family.
Then, a week later, on April 29, 2010, Ward returned.
This time, he was alone.
Ward quickly convinced the family — who were devoted Jehovah’s Witnesses — that Brittini was possessed by a demon. In reality, she had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia since she was a teenager. Days before Brittini died, her family testified, Ward tried to choke “the demon out of her.” When the two were home alone, Ward raped and strangled Brittini until she died, the jury found.
She was 23, and he was 24.
For 14 years, Ward has repeatedly been found mentally unfit to stand trial — until now. In the Mecklenburg County Courthouse last week, Ward made it in front of a jury and opted to represent himself as family members testified against him.
It was Charlotte’s first pro se murder trial — where the defendant refuses representation — since 2012.
After the jury’s guilty verdict Wednesday, Chief Superior Court Judge Carla Archie sentenced Ward to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
She offered Ward the opportunity to speak to the courtroom. He declined. Assistant District Attorney Kimberly Gardner read a letter from Brittini Ward’s family thanking the judge, jury, and district attorney’s office.
After the trial, Ward’s mother, who declined to give her name, said she questioned why Archie not only allowed her son to stand trial, but also represent himself when she was aware of his untreated mental illness.
The case against Derek Ward
Days before Brittini died, family said they saw Ward choke Brittini three times.
He was “trying to get the demon out,” he said as his hands squeezed her neck, according to their testimony.
They believed him then, and they believed him days later, on that hot 2010 Cinco de Mayo when he told them Brittini — who had a bruised neck and bloody legs — was still alive. They just had to clean her up to expel the demon.
The family of once-devoted Jehovah’s Witnesses also believed the Bible, they said, and its mentions of demonic possession.
During closing arguments Tuesday, prosecutors told the jury Ward had fooled the family.
“You are Brittini’s last true voice,” said Gardner, the assistant district attorney. “Don’t be fooled.”
She reminded the jury of Ward’s peculiar behavior. He quickly made himself comfortable in a home he wasn’t invited into — sitting on counters and telling the teenage Ward girls to clean the Providence Court apartment in southeast Charlotte, the family said. After Brittini died, he moved into her room and filled her drawers with his clothes.
Beyond the family’s damning testimony, Gardner said, there was the DNA evidence. Ward’s DNA was found in a collection of Brittini’s pubic hairs.
Ward said he “cleaned Brittini up” earlier on May, 5, 2010 — before family got home.
Brittini hadn’t needed help cleaning herself since she was a child, family said.
Brittini’s aunt testifies
Michael Kabakoff, Ward’s standby public defender, spent half the trial banished to seats reserved for onlookers while Ward stumbled through the trial and cross-examinations. Ward removed Kabakoff from the seat at the defense’s desk after he told Archie he didn’t think Ward was mentally well.
Ward’s mother expressed the same concerns.
Ward tapped Kabakoff back in before closing arguments, as a DNA expert took the witness stand. Kabakoff immediately tried to question the DNA’s validity, revealing new information about an ongoing investigation into Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department’s crime lab. An employee hired in 2016 had been found tampering with DNA tests in March.
Archie removed the jury from the courtroom as Kabakoff, prosecutors and Aby Moeykens, the DNA expert, discussed the employee. Prosecutors argued she was not involved in this case, so the jury should not doubt the DNA tests’ validity.
Kabakoff, speaking to the jury Tuesday, revisited the circumstances surrounding the trial. He argued prosecutors rested too heavily on testimony from the Ward family — and specifically Dawn Wheeler, who was formerly Dawn Ward.
Dawn, Brittini’s mother, shouldn’t be trusted, he argued. She was Ward’s co-defendant in 2010, and her 2010 interviews and recent testimony contradict each other.
She, after being arrested in Brittini’s murder, pleaded guilty to concealing her daughter’s death. Prosecutors dropped a murder charge and incest charges against her — which was related to her and Ward’s relationship.
While testifying in court, Dawn said she and Ward — who were made aunt and nephew by a marriage in the family — had sex before and after Brittini’s death. She denied it was a relationship, though, saying he forced her to have sex with him.
Dawn never told investigators that, Kabakoff said. In fact, Dawn used to wear a necklace Ward had given her after Brittini’s death, photos show.
It had a star on it, and Ward, in 2010, went by “Stars Russ.”
Kabakoff continued, questioning Dawn’s credibility.
Investigators on May 5, 2010, interviewed only Derek and two elders from the family’s Kingdom Hall — where Jehovah’s Witnesses congregate.
It wasn’t until May 24, 2010, that detectives revisited Dawn and her children.
Detectives said Dawn didn’t cry when they told her Brittini didn’t just die — she was raped and murdered.
She fake cried, a sergeant — the only witnesses Kabakoff called to the stand — testified. A transcript of the interview showed when the sergeant told her to “try sniffling once or twice.” Her performance was “not cutting it,” he said.
Ward, at the beginning of trial, refused the suit his family brought him to wear. He wanted to stay in the orange Mecklenburg County Detention Center jumpsuit, he said, so the jury could “see what the last 14 years has done.”
Observer reporter Jeff A. Chamer contributed.
This story was originally published August 28, 2024 at 5:46 PM.
