By Ashley McLeod, Staff Writer
Dec 25, 2015, 15:39
HOPEWELL — The second participant in the brutal murder of a Hopewell cab driver was found guilty on three charges in Hanover Circuit Court on Monday.
Alisa Nicole Dejesus was charged with arson, abduction, and first-degree murder after she and her boyfriend, Dyshawn Divonte Simpson, stabbed, abducted, and set fire to James Wells, 26, of Hopewell, a Navy veteran who had given the pair a ride in his cab from Hopewell to Mechanicsville.
Simpson admitted to the crimes and was in court in August. After a plea deal, Simpson pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and will serve life in prison.
On the night of Aug. 9, 2014, Wells was working as a cab driver for Marshall Cab Co. in the Hopewell area. At about 12:15 a.m., Dejesus and Simpson approached his cab wanting a ride out to Mechanicsville. Wells then contacted his boss to let him know he had two customers wanting the ride. Around 12:55 a.m., John Marshall, owner of the cab company who was also working dispatch that night, called Wells to check on him. Wells reported back when the fare was over, but never returned. Marshall made repeated attempts to contact him via cell phone but got no response.
“I got really worried so I called the state police,” said Marshall, who then got in his truck and drove out to the Mechanicsville area to try and look for Wells.
Later in the morning, around 7 a.m., Scott French was leaving to go to work as a park ranger for the National Park Service near the Cold Harbor area of Hanover County. As he pulled out of his driveway to go to work, French noticed a charred vehicle in the ditch down the street.
“I could physically see a burned-out shell of a Chevy minivan,” French said during his testimony.
French called into the park service and the police, who responded to his call. Sgt. Christopher Stem responded and investigated the burned-out van, where the remains of Wells were discovered.
During an autopsy of Wells, medical examiners found a stab wound in his upper torso.
The team also found soot in Wells’ esophagus and trachea, showing that he was alive when the van went up in flames.
“Soot should not be there unless he was actively breathing at the time,” said forensic pathologist and Assistant Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Lauren Huddle.
Huddle also said that tests concluded that the carboxyhemoglobin levels, or levels of carbon monoxide, in Wells blood were at 23 percent. A normal person’s levels do not go above 10 percent, showing that combustive materials were inhaled.
“Mr. Wells was actively inhaling products of combustion from the fire,” said Huddle. “He was alive at the time.”
The autopsy determined that Wells died from an acute inhalation injury.
After months of investigation, information led police to Dejesus and Simpson, who were arrested in March of this year.
Sgt. Stem spoke to Dejesus at the Hanover Sheriff’s Office after the two were detained. At first, Dejesus claimed that a car was following them, and then two men entered the cab, assaulted Wells and then forced her to drive away. Later, she confessed that she and her boyfriend had planned on running from paying the cab fare, but Simpson instead pulled a knife and attacked Wells, slitting his throat.
Dejesus told investigators that Wells pleaded for his life, and continuously asked for her to help him. Instead, Dejesus drove the van away. The two drove through Mechanicsville, and then to a wooded area in Hanover, where Dejesus claims she got out and walked away while Simpson searched the vehicle for anything to set it on fire.
She said that he found a road flare in the van, lit it, and set it on top of Wells’ body.
After lighting the blaze, the pair walked through the woods and ended up at a nearby McDonalds.
“They went there because they had to wash the blood off of their bodies,” said Stem in court. Dejesus had admitted this to him during interrogations.
Dejesus also told investigators that when Simpson had stabbed Wells, she looked away and has since been haunted by the event.
“It’s not like it is in the movies in person; it’s nothing like I would wish on anybody,” Stem quoted Dejesus while on the stand.
During the day-long trial in Hanover on Monday, Dejesus pleaded not guilty to all three charges, although she had admitted to police that Simpson and she were involved in the tragedy. The judge concluded that the prosecutor, Shari Skipper, had proved beyond a reasonable doubt every element of each charge, and said she was guilty on all counts.
Sentencing for Dejesus will occur on March 21 in Hanover Circuit Court.
