A sort of South Carolina The man was convicted on Tuesday for the kidnapping and murder of a 21-year-old college student who mistook his car for her Uber ride.
It took more than an hour for the jury to find Nathaniel Rowland guilty of the death of Samantha Josephson of Robbinsville, New Jersey. He was arrested the day after his disappearance from the Five Points Entertainment District in Columbia in March 2019 as a student at the University of South Carolina.
The prosecutor said that Josephson got into Roland’s car and thought it was an Uber car that could take her back to her apartment. Investigators said that, on the contrary, she found out that she was trapped because Roland opened the child lock.
No one saw her alive anymore. She had about 120 stab wounds on her body and was later found in a remote forest about 105 kilometers from Colombia. The death caused national concern about the safety of online car-hailing and led to some changes, including a more prominent driver’s license display.
“Her dream is my dream, and her death is my death. I close my eyes and I can feel everything she has endured in his hands,” the victim’s mother, Marcy Josephson, sentencing in the Roland trial on Tuesday Stage said.
The prosecution spent about a week providing a large amount of evidence and summoned nearly three dozen witnesses. Experts connected Josephson’s blood with the inside of Roland’s Chevrolet Impala and the suspicious weapon, a two-edged knife. The expert testified that blood stains on Roland’s socks and headscarves were also found on the cleaning supplies in the trash bin behind the man’s girlfriend’s house.
Other evidence includes cell phone tracking data, which determined Roland’s location on the night of the crime. A forensic scientist testified that the DNA collected from Roland’s nails matched the victim’s genetic material, and the suspect’s and victim’s DNA was also found on the gloves in the trash can.
Roland’s defense lawyer pointed out that scientists are not absolutely certain that Roland’s DNA is on the knife. His lawyer also argued that although Josephson appeared to be fighting her attacker, no Roland’s DNA was found on her body, and there was no obvious trace of a fight after his arrest. The defense did not call witnesses, nor did Roland testify.
Before ending the defense’s case, Roland’s lawyer requested that the charges be dropped because the prosecutor had an indirect case-it was never proved that Roland actually killed Josephson, nor did he prove that he was driving when she disappeared.
Circuit Judge Clifton Newman rejected the request, saying that the jury should consider a large amount of direct and indirect evidence.
Roland will face life imprisonment when the sentence is pronounced without parole.
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Liu is a team member of the Associated Press/US State Assembly News Initiative. Report for America is a non-profit national service program that allows reporters to report secret issues in local newsrooms.
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