August 15, 2023
WEST HOLLYWOOD, CA—Andre Davids, African-American, was sentenced to 12 years for stabbing his boyfriend, Kurtland Ma, over 40 times, scalping him, and disemboweling him on March 29, 2014. The story received almost no media coverage at the time.
Davids was convicted in late 2015 for voluntary manslaughter. Jurors acquitted him of a more serious charge of second-degree murder of his 34-year-old emergency room doctor boyfriend after his attorney successfully argued the murder was a “crime of passion,” according to WEHOville.
Apparently, Ma wanted to end his relationship with Davids and Davids couldn’t take it. According to Ma’s friends and acquaintances, Davids was extremely possessive and wanted Ma to cut off all communication with his friends, which caused further strain on their relationship.
In 2016, a three-justice panel from California’s 2nd District Court of Appeal rejected Davids appeal for a shorter prison sentence from 12 years to 6 years.
“Here, Davids severely mutilated and killed Ma using several knives. The crime thus involved great violence and great bodily harm and showed a high degree of callousness and indicated Davids posed a serious danger to society,” the appellate court panel wrote in its five-page ruling. “Considering Davids’ callousness and violence in committing this crime, the trial court acted within its discretion in imposing the upper term.”
Deputy District Attorney Michele Hanisee stated at the time the Ma murder was “absolutely one of the most gruesome crime scenes that I or the homicide detectives have ever seen.”
Prosecutors noted Ma suffered around 40 stab wounds, was “disemboweled,” with some of his organs stuffed into his mouth, was scalped, and pill bottles and pills were shoved into Ma’s body cavity. The murder was motivated by Ma’s decision to break up with Davids.
Ma had a wide circle of friends in places ranging from Scottsdale and Phoenix, Ariz., where he grew up and went to high school, to New York City where he did his residency at Jacobi Medical Center-Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Ma got a job at Memorial Hospital in Gardena in early 2014, and he rented the apartment on Palm Avenue in West Hollywood, reports WEHOville.
Black-on-Asian violence has been an issue in the United States and abroad for decades. Shedding a light on these stories shows the double-standards in media coverage.
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