Simpson guilty of murder
A former tenant of social worker Ida James was convicted yesterday of her brutal murder.Norris Simpson stabbed Ms James 60 times in her own home on the night of September 1 2011.Prosecutors alleged that he was angry with the victim, who was his landlady and lived alone, because she was chasing him for unpaid rent.The body of the 66-year-old victim was discovered in a pool of blood on the floor of her Berry Hill, Paget, home by another of her tenants.Simpson, a 54-year-old manual labourer with a history of crack cocaine addiction, has numerous previous convictions dating back to 1977. They include multiple attacks on women and burglaries [see sidebar].The jury did not hear of his past, and Simpson maintained his innocence of the murder throughout his two-week trial. He claimed he was at home watching DVDs on the night Ms James was killed.However, the jury of nine men and three women heard that police found Ms James’ DNA under his fingernails and a piece of her flesh on his baseball cap after his arrest.He also had cuts and abrasions from the attack, during which the victim fought to defend herself.Prosecutor Rory Field suggested Simpson may have been attempting to steal from Ms James’ home on the night of the killing.The jury heard evidence that she was a “hoarder” and more than $10,000 in cash was found in her home and car after her death.Simpson gasped in shock as the majority verdict was returned by the jury yesterday afternoon after more than six hours of deliberation.He then turned to look at his family and friends in the public gallery before removing his spectacles and briefly burying his head in his hands.He will be sentenced at a later date, which will be set when he returns to court next month. He left the courtroom with a jacket over his head, as he has during each day of his trial.Speaking after the verdict, Detective Chief Inspector Nicholas Pedro of the Bermuda Police Service said: “Whilst we welcome the verdict of the jury in this case, it’s important to remember that the family of Ms James are grieving at this time. Obviously this was a very brutal and vicious crime. We heard Ms James was stabbed over 60 times in her own home.”Det Ch Insp Pedro extended his condolences to the victim’s family and friends, and noted that the guilty verdict came after a “hard fought case both by the defence and the Crown”.Another police officer involved in the case was Inspector Robert Cardwell.He was off duty on the morning the murder was discovered by a Nepalese lady who called at Ms James’ home to pay her rent money.The woman’s husband raced to the scene — getting injured in a bike crash en route, due to his haste — and then ran onto Berry Hill Road to flag down a car for help.The first vehicle to stop was that of Insp Cardwell, who was travelling with his seven-year-old son.Invited to share his recollection of events that morning, the officer told The Royal Gazette: “It was quite coincidental that I was the person who stopped. A number of cars in front of me were going around the man who was frantically trying to wave them down. When I saw the blood on him I knew it was my duty to stop and assist.”Insp Cardwell said his young son was left “distressed” by the incident, but he is glad he was able to offer assistance at the scene.“My experience and training enabled me to identify a crime scene pretty quickly and put things in place to ensure the integrity of that crime scene was preserved and not compromised,” he explained.Although there were no eyewitnesses to the murder and the weapon was never found, Simpson was eventually linked to the crime through DNA evidence.
Norris Simpson, the man convicted yesterday of murdering his landlady Ida James, has a lengthy criminal history including attacks on women and burglaries.
Simpson, who has battled crack cocaine addiction, first came before the courts in 1977 at the age of 19, for forging an immigration card.
The following year, he was jailed for four months for breaking into St George’s Prep School, destroying property there and making an article containing inflammatory liquid with intent to damage the school.
He was convicted at the same time of unlawfully destroying property at St George’s Dinghy Club and another charge of possessing an article containing inflammatory liquid.
In 1982, he was convicted of unlawfully assaulting a young woman in Devonshire, and maliciously damaging her nightgown. He was given a one-year conditional discharge.
Three years later Simpson was found guilty of breaking into a woman’s house and unlawfully assaulting her.
He was fined $650, yet was back in court for an attack on the same woman a year later, this time getting fined $50.
In the same year, 1987, Simpson was handed two more 12-month conditional discharges for stealing a carpet layer’s toolbox and unlawfully trespassing at the Royal Palms hotel.
Having been dealt with at Magistrates’ Court for all of those crimes, Simpson was sent to the Supreme Court in 1988 for armed robbery.
The court heard he was armed with a knife when he robbed a woman of her briefcase. He got six years in prison for that.
During the same appearance at Supreme Court, he received additional, concurrent, jail sentences for breaking into a man’s home and stealing jewellery, breaking into a woman’s home and stealing her shoulder bag, and uttering seven forged cheques.
In the year 2000, Simpson got a suspended sentence for stealing eight cheques in two separate break-ins at the Allen Temple AME Church, where he was the caretaker. He cashed the stolen cheques to gain more than $2,000, which he used to purchase crack cocaine.
Magistrate Edward King heard Simpson had since entered drug rehabilitation treatment.
A ten-year gap followed until he was next in court in February 2010, for possessing a crack pipe. He was fined $300.
Less than two years after that came the murder he was convicted of yesterday.
Supreme Court heard that he was working as a manual labourer and renting a room from Ms James at the time he stabbed her to death in September 2011.
He had been doing maintenance work for Ms James as part-payment for a room he rented from her on North Shore Road, but she was urging him to pay rent money he still owed.
The killing was said by prosecutors to have been motivated by anger over that — or possibly a break-in to steal money from Ms James’ home that ended up turning violent.
Simpson, who protested his innocence over the killing, now faces a life sentence.
