Mother Walks Away from Murder Charge Five Years Later  

Tonight, a mother of four, Shareema Neal, is celebrating her freedom after being acquitted of the murder of seventeen-year-old Jasmine Petillo. Back in 2016, Jasmine’s body was found in Mahogany Heights Village, brutally stabbed multiple times. Five years later, D.N.A. evidence linked blood found in Neal’s home to Jasmine, leading to Neal’s arrest. The prosecution claimed the murder was revenge, as Jasmine was the last person Neal’s late boyfriend contacted before his sudden death. Two months after Jasmine’s murder, Neal’s house was burned down, and while pregnant, she was charged with murder. But tonight, Neal is back with her family. Her attorney, Lynden Jones, shared the key factors that led to her acquittal.

 

Lynden Jones, Attorney of Acquitted

“The judge stated that The Crown did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she was guilty of the offense. She is now a free lady after she was claiming her innocence from the beginning. The trial was done in September. We got a decision today. Trial was a short trial, two days. No person could have identified my client. However, the Crown relied heavily on the investigating officer and on DNA evidence. And we are of the opinion that the DNA evidence did not support the Crown’s case fully. And the investigating officer did not really assist the Crown as much as they needed. We did not get a written submission today. We only got a summary and an oral verdict. But the verdict was positive for my client.”

 

Reporter

“But tell us, let’s go back a little bit about when this incident first occurred and your client was accused. How did they even link her,  aside from the DNA, as a suspect in this murder?”

 

Lynden Jones

“My client was in a relationship with a known person to the law. And that person was lured to his death. They alleged that the last person who had communication with her deceased common-law was the person who was murdered, Miss Jasmine Petillo. However,  that is what the Crown wanted to state, that it was revenge, that Miss Shareema Neal had some involvement or was the main person for the murder of Jasmine Petillo due to the fact that Her ex-commandant in law was worried to her death  When they did luminal testing in the house, a little bit of blood was found in the house, and it was sent out for DNA testing abroad, and that’s when they found partial matches of what was could have been Miss Jasmine Petillo’s blood. It was not one hundred percent certain and therefore that is why Miss Neal was charged for the murder of Miss Jasmine Petillo. But we had discrepancies in the case as it pertains to, was it the exact house? Was it twenty-eight where Miss Neal resides? Or was it twenty-eight B, another house? Or what could have been another house? As was stated in the search warrant, where they exactly found the blood is still in question, for since then one of the homes has burned up.”