Witness describes ‘terrified’ screams of hotel worker ‘stabbed by asylum seeker’

A friend of a hotel worker who was fatally stabbed at a railway station, allegedly by a Sudanese asylum seeker, has told how she heard her friend’s high-pitched and “terrified” screams during a phone call.

Jurors have heard Rhiannon Skye Whyte was using her mobile to chat to a friend in the moments before she was stabbed more than 23 times at Bescot Stadium station in Walsall, shortly after she finished her shift at the town’s Park Inn hotel.

Deng Chol Majek, who the court has heard claims to be aged 19, denies murdering Ms Whyte on October 20 last year, after allegedly “tracking” her from the hotel, where he lived and she helped to look after residents.

Giving evidence to Wolverhampton Crown Court in a video-recorded interview, the content of which is not challenged by the defence, Ms Whyte’s friend, Emma Cowley, said a normal conversation with Ms Whyte ended abruptly and she then heard three screams.

In the interview with a police officer, recorded a day after 27-year-old Ms Whyte was attacked and two days before she died in hospital, Ms Cowley said: “She said she was just leaving work.

“I think I asked her ‘whereabouts are you now?’ and she said ‘I am just headed towards the station’.

“I just remember there was silence and she’s not one to just go silent.

“So I was like ‘Rhiannon, are you still there?’ and originally I didn’t hear anything and then I heard a scream. It was a really high-pitched, terrified, in-pain scream.”

Ms Cowley, who was phoning from outside the West Midlands and did not know the location of the hotel her friend was working at, added: “I always try and think positively.

“I was thinking maybe it (the screaming) is just someone that’s drunk on the platform with her.”

The victim’s friend, who had known her since early childhood, said she had then called her name several times but there was no response.

After further screams, Ms Cowley said, her husband told her to ring the police immediately.

The witness told the court she was in shock as she contacted the police on one phone and used another handset to ask Ms Whyte’s mother for details of the hotel where her daughter worked.

After breaking down in tears during her video interview, Ms Cowley was asked to describe the screams she heard and told the interviewing officer: “It was awful.

“Originally, I thought that can’t be her. It was just high-pitched, terrified, surprised… an unexpected thing where someone creeps up on you. It was a very terrified screech.”

Majek also denies possessing a screwdriver as an offensive weapon.

The trial continues on Thursday.