Jurors charged with determining whether Keith Littlepage killed his girlfriend, Selina Knight, heard the first evidence in the case today. Jurors were sworn in yesterday by Judge Thomas Motley.
Littlepage, 50, is suspected of fatally stabbing Knight at the Southeast DC home that they shared but she was trying to leave. He is charged with first degree murder while armed, kidnapping, and burglary, among other charges associated with the case, and has pled innocent.
Charging documents in the case say Littlepage killed Knight on March 4, 2011, after twice burglarizing their apartment and threatening her on multiple occasions. The charging documents state that friends had tried to contact Knight several times on March 4, but were not able to reach her. Just before midnight that day they went to her apartment to check on her and found her dead.
Officers found derogatory graffiti written on walls throughout the apartment.
“Bitch you gave me HIV,” was among the statements made by the graffiti, officers said.
Knight’s mother, the first witness called in the case, took the stand Thursday; she said her daughter and Littlepage had had a loving relationship, but that in November 2010 Littlepage had seemed to change. He grew controlling and soon began threatening Knight, she said.
Remembering a voicemail from Littlepage that her daughter had played for her, she told the jury that shortly before her daughter was killed, Littlepage had threatened to “erase ” her “from this earth.”
But later in the voicemail Littlepage became loving again.
“He said, ‘Baby, I love you. I would never do anything to harm you, you know,’” she remembered.
Prosecutor Robert Feital showed jurors a photo of a poem found in the couple’s home.
“Roses are read, violets are blue. Selina baby, I will always love u,” the poem read.
In December, Feital said he anticipated that the trial would last about three weeks and that the government would call approximately 30 witnesses.
