Murderer lied to jury about his age and claimed DNA evidence was untrue

Few details are known about Deng Chol Majek’s journey from Africa to Walsall, but he claimed to have left a pregnant wife behind in war-torn Sudan while fleeing from a solider who wanted to marry his sister.

The only agreed facts relating to his background presented to the jury who convicted him of murdering Rhiannon Whyte were that he had no previous convictions or cautions recorded against him, and that he had been arrested in Kaiserslautern in Germany in August 2023.

Jurors were told that a crime report was filed in Germany alleging that Majek “when drunk had kicked the driver’s door and passenger door of a train” but no damage was caused.

Significantly, although the German police investigation into Majek was discontinued, the crime report on the incident listed his date of birth as January 1 1998, meaning he would have been 26 when he killed Ms Whyte and would now be 27.

As well as lying about his age and his movements on the night he followed and killed Ms Whyte, who had finished her shift at Walsall’s Park Inn hotel at 11pm on October 20 last year, Majek tried to convince jurors that he could not hold even a rudimentary conversation in English.

A housing officer based at the hotel told the court that Majek was “in his face” and capable of protesting his innocence in English during a row related to unauthorised smoking in a hotel room, even using English when he subsequently apologised.

Similarly, Majek claimed to have no grasp of German despite staying in the country until his asylum application was refused, prompting him to decide to cross the English Channel in a small boat.

During a pre-trial hearing at which a Sudanese Arabic interpreter was not available, prosecutor Michelle Heeley KC offered to translate the proceedings into German for Majek.

When he was asked by Ms Heeley, in German, if he spoke German as well as English, Majek responded “nein” before quickly adding “no, only English”.

In an account to the jury, which the Crown claimed was untrue and designed to minimise his age, Majek said Italian authorities had not even consulted him about his date of birth and “just assumed” details which would mean he was eight years older than he claimed to be.

Insisting he was still 19 despite appearing to be much older, Majek told his trial through a Sudanese dialect Arabic interpreter that he had left Sudan in April 2022 aged 16.

He said he first travelled to Libya, then to Italy, where he was “rescued” from the sea, spending a few months in the country.

“Then I was taken to Germany,” he said, claiming to have a daughter whose date of birth he did not know.

Asked by his barrister, Gurdeep Garcha KC, why he had left Sudan, Majek, who said his mother tongue was the Dinka tribal language, continued: “I had a problem with a person and because of that I had to leave the south of Sudan to the north of Sudan.

“This person wanted to marry my sister, which we refused, and then he started threatening us and we had to leave the area.”

During his trial, Majek repeatedly insisted he was not a figure caught on clear CCTV footage heading towards a platform at Bescot Stadium station, where Ms Whyte was stabbed more than 20 times and left for dead at about 11.18pm.

Even though the footage captured a figure wearing an identical hooded jacket to his, with a distinctive dark square patch on the left arm, Majek maintained “anyone could buy one” and the man was not him.

He also alleged the overwhelming DNA evidence was not true and there had been no blood on his clothes or footwear.

Questioned by Mr Garcha about the incident on the transport network in Kaiserlautern, Majek said: “I was trying to stop the train at my stop at the station and the door wasn’t opening. And I knocked the door and the police were called.”

Majek was hauled from his bed in Room 309 at Walsall’s Park Inn hotel at 5.06am on October 21 last year and was handcuffed by officers, remaining largely silent as they searched for the clothes he had been wearing when Ms Whyte was stabbed.

A two-week trial at Wolverhampton Crown Court ended on Friday with Majek being convicted by a unanimous verdict of murdering Ms Whyte.