Murder of Alianna DeFreeze

Alianna DeFreeze, the daughter of Damon DeFreeze and Donnesha Cooper,[18] was a seventh-grader at E Prep & Village Prep Woodland Hills.[16] She was fourteen-years-old and had a developmental disability.[19] She would take the RTA bus to school, which her mother and grandmother did not like, though the fact that one stop was in front of a police station made them feel better about her means of transportation.[20]

Christopher Whitaker (born 1973)[15] was a native of Fayetteville, Tennessee with a long criminal record.[4] His crimes and alleged crimes include:

• In 1998 he was charged with grand theft and burglary. He was also charged with aggravated robbery and felonious assault, though the case was dismissed.[3]
• On April 8, 2005, he committed sexual battery and felonious assault against a woman in her home after she let him in so that he could use the bathroom. According to the victim, he came out of the bathroom with a pair of scissors and began choking her.[4] He proceeded to stab her in the neck with the scissors.[21] She passed out and woke up on the floor with neck pain and with her pants and underwear removed. An evaluation determined that she had been sexually assaulted. Whitaker was sentenced to four years in prison for third-degree felony sexual battery and second-degree felonious assault. He was released in 2009 and was registered as a sex offender.[4]
• In 2012 he was charged with aggravated theft.[3]

At 4:00 pm when DeFreeze had still not returned home from school her mother became concerned. She called E Prep and was informed that DeFreeze never arrived at school.[16] DeFreeze was reported missing, prompting a city-wide search.[8]

On January 29, DeFreeze's body was found at the house where Whitaker had murdered her by three Cleveland police officers.[9] The officers entered the house after noticing that the back door was open[2] and found a trail of blood leading from the dining room into a room behind a closed door. After kicking open the door, they found DeFreeze's deceased body crumpled in a corner in a pool of blood. She was naked except for her socks and had wounds to her head.[9]

The boxcutter was used to slash DeFreeze's neck while the drill had been used to put four puncture wounds into her cheek, as well as a wound on her forehead that dislodged her right eyeball from the socket. Because many of the wounds showed signs that they had started healing, they were inflicted on her several hours before she died.[9] DeFreeze appeared as if she had been dragged and thrown into the room.[2] DeFreeze’s clothing, including a tie soaked with blood and a sweater that was torn open down the front, were found strewn about the house.[9]

Along with DeFreeze's clothing, police also found her backpack, and tools including a drill, box cutter,[2] a screwdriver,[25] and a hammer, all of which had blood on them.[2] The tools were laid out on a built-in bench in the dining room, which prosecutors described as a makeshift workstation.[5]

DeFreeze’s body was identified using dental records by the medical examiner's office.[4] An autopsy performed by Cuyahoga County Deputy Medical Examiner Dr. David Dolinak revealed that she suffered wounds caused by tools found in the house including a drill, a screwdriver, and a box cutter. She had so many injuries and her injuries were so severe that Dolinak could not identify which one caused her death. Forensics analysts also found Whitaker's DNA on DeFreeze's body.[25] Whitaker was identified using the DNA[27] and was arrested at 7:00 pm on February 2 at the Villa Serena Apartments in Mayfield Heights with the assistance of U.S. Marshalls.[4]

Whitaker was interrogated by Cleveland Police, and changed his story several times, initially denying any involvement in the murder and then going on to admit his involvement, but still denying responsibility by blaming his actions on crack-cocaine use. Whitaker said that he had blacked out after punching DeFreeze and that he would not have committed the crime if he were sober. "People are going to look at me like a monster. I'm not a monster” he told investigators, adding that he was “just an addict who made a mistake that shouldn't have happened." Whitaker also told investigators that he did not want his face in the news.[28]

DeFreeze's murder trial began on February 1, 2018.[10] Whitaker's defense attorneys acknowledged his crimes but said that his drug use made him less able to control his impulses and follow the law.[12] Prosecutors disagreed, with assistant prosecutor Mahmoud Awadallah saying: “the evidence does not point to a drug-induced frenzy, does not point to a blackout. It points to that he knows what he was doing.”[13] On February 13, 2018, Whitaker was found guilty[5] of ten counts.[13]

After convicting Whitaker jurors had to decide whether or not he should be sentenced to death or life in prison. On February 23 the jury recommended that he be put to death[11] and Judge Carolyn Friedland agreed and formally sentenced him on March 26,[29] saying that the mitigating circumstances "pale in comparison to the barbarity of the evidence."[10]

DeFreeze's mother told the court that “death is too good for him and I won’t believe he has any remorse until he suffers like my daughter suffered.” DeFreeze’s father told Whitaker “when you get where you’re going, you’re going to get what you got coming, before you get to the gas, lethal injection chamber, and that “my baby didn’t have a chance.”[13] The woman Whitaker had attacked in 2005 supported his death sentence.[30] Along with his death sentence, Whitaker was sentenced to forty-eight years in prison for aggravated burglary, felonious assault, rape, obstruction of justice, and gross abuse of a corpse.[13]

Whitaker is currently imprisoned on death row at the Chillicothe Correctional Institution in Chillicothe, Ohio for aggravated burglary, kidnapping, rape, aggravated murder, tampering with evidence, and abuse of a corpse.[15]