The invention of 17-year-old Lashonda Flynn’s lifeless physique in a Seattle park in November, 2003 launched what would grow to be one of many metropolis’s most notorious homicide circumstances — unearthing a weird love triangle that puzzles investigators to this present day.
On the middle was Demar Rhome, a 22-year-old with a darkish historical past of preying on weak teen women.
Flynn was a runaway residing with 22-year-old Rhome when she was brutally stabbed 4 occasions by somebody she barely knew, 17-year-old Kialani Brown.
Rhome met Brown, a teen mother from Vancouver, Washington, on a phone get together chat line in October 2003 and invited her for every week’s keep in November on the house he shared with Flynn in Seattle, as seen on the most recent season of the true-crime collection “For My Man,” which airs Monday nights on TV One.
Rhome used the pseudonym Devante Carlson on the telephone get together line, describing himself as “Good-looking within the face, thick within the ass,” including that he would supply “sit-down delicate dinners” and “sexual experiences nonstop.”
Information reviews on the time famous that Rhome particularly sought out ladies who weren’t Black.
Three weeks after speaking on the get together line, Brown, who was reportedly white and initially from Hawaii, boarded a bus and arrived at Flynn and Rhome’s house along with her two-year-old son in tow, mendacity to her mother that she deliberate to stick with a feminine buddy within the metropolis.
Inside days of assembly, Brown mentioned Rhome had persuaded her to kill his girlfriend — who he described as his “foster sister” — and inside every week, the 2 had dumped Flynn’s lifeless physique in a trash bag at Seattle’s Discovery Park, the place her stays can be discovered the following day.
Shortly after the homicide, Rhome allegedly pinned every thing on Brown in a telephone dialog along with her mom, who instantly referred to as 911. Police arrested Brown and Rhome on the house he shared with Flynn amid bloody knives and trash baggage.
When the weird story broke to the press, the crime had the entire metropolis of Seattle speaking just because it defied all logic and left so many puzzling questions. In need of hypnotism, how might somebody be manipulated into homicide inside days?
“From the second Kialani Brown arrived in Seattle, Demar Rhome started to maneuver [her and Flynn] like chess items,” Hugh Barber, King County senior deputy prosecuting legal professional, advised the courtroom through the Rhome homicide trial. He “advised Kialani when to kill Lashonda, how you can kill Lashonda, and why to kill Lashonda, after which he sat again and watched as his work unfolded.”
The testimony and knowledgeable witnesses at his trial painted a disturbing image: Rhome, who had been out and in of foster properties his entire life, was a violent and deeply troubled hustler concerned in petty theft, extortion, and pimping. He preyed on younger ladies like Flynn, whom he met in 2002 when he occurred upon the then-16-year-old runway at a bus shelter crying within the rain.
“She advised him she’d been kicked out of her grandmother’s dwelling, that she had nowhere to go,” in keeping with one report.
Rhome took her in and shortly tightened his grip on the weak highschool dropout, allegedly forcing her into prostitution, making her sleep on the ground, and demanding that she stroll far behind him in public.
“Lashonda, she was simply swayed; she acquired overpowered by robust personalities. She’d do something to get their consideration, to be with them. She’d do something to stick with that particular person.” her grandmother, Olla Pinder, advised the Seattle Occasions shortly after her homicide, including that she had run away from dwelling earlier than with one other boy.
Flynn usually requested her grandmother for cash, calling her a number of occasions every week. Of their final telephone name the day earlier than Flynn was killed, Pinder overheard the 2 screaming at one another.
Little is thought of Brown, who in the end confessed to the stabbing demise of Flynn and pled responsible to second-degree homicide, which carries a sentence of as much as 18 years.
In Washington, juveniles who’re no less than 16 years previous are transferred on to grownup courtroom after they commit severe violent crimes, however her legal professional pleaded for leniency, arguing that she was younger and a earlier sufferer of home abuse, making her weak to Rhome’s manipulation ways.
Brown had “some run-ins with the legislation, together with an arrest for theft and forgery,” in keeping with the Seattle Occasions, however there have been no violent offenses in her historical past.
In her testimony, Brown portrayed Rhome as a psychotic puppet grasp who sexually assaulted her and threatened to kill her and her son shortly after arriving at his house. She ended up receiving a lighter sentence of ten years in 2016. Since her early launch in December 2012, her whereabouts are unknown.
Rhome, nonetheless, had an affordable shot at getting away with it if he had not insisted on firing his legal professionals and appearing as his personal legal professional.
All through the trial, he consistently contradicted himself, straight-out lied, and acted erratically. His appointed standby counsel, felony protection legal professional Michael Danko, was poised to step in if Rhome had allowed it. With no fingerprints on the homicide weapon, there was room for cheap doubt.
As Danko identified, “How does a person persuade a 17-year-old lady to kill a 17-year-old lady after they’ve solely been collectively for six days? It’s counterintuitive … A case might have been made that the state’s proof didn’t add up.”
In Rhome’s closing remarks, the would-be legal professional nearly confessed to the homicide. “All of us bleed the identical blood,” he advised the courtroom. “All of us cry the identical tears. All of us urinate the identical urine. All of us poop the identical poop. If I actually — within the Lord Jesus Christ’s title — win this jury trial,” he mentioned, “I’ll haven’t any extra involvements in murder.”
He was discovered responsible of first-degree homicide by a jury and given a most sentence of 31 years behind bars. In the meantime, he hasn’t stopped his makes an attempt to lure in ladies. On his TikTok account he described himself as a “horny” rapper “wanting 2 discover love and happiness and romance.” In 2020, he posted on a “pen-pal” website:
Demar Rhome’s TikTok Account 2023
@demar.rhome
My Profile Textual content
♬ unique sound – Demar Rhome – Demar Rhome
“Demar Rhome, Black/Creole horny seductive, single with horny sounding singing expertise… new associates wished! A/A 100%.”
In a letter to the editor of the San Quentin Information, he additionally mentioned his plans to maneuver to California upon his launch.
Since his sentencing, Rhome did an about-face and filed an attraction within the Washington Superior Courtroom, claiming he was incompetent to face trial — not to mention symbolize himself. Whereas courtroom information present that he has had many diagnoses via the years, together with narcissistic persona dysfunction and delinquent persona dysfunction, the courtroom deemed he was mentally sane and had the capability to type intent on the night time of the homicide. The attraction was denied in 2011.
