‘Vicious and frenzied’: Deng Majek found guilty of Rhiannon Whyte’s murder | Crime

It was around 11pm on October 20, 2024, when Rhiannon Skye Whyte, 27, from Walsall, finished her late shift at the Park Inn hotel in Wolverhampton and headed for the nearby railway station.

Whyte, who worked as a cleaner and food service at the hotel where the refugees stayed, had been working there for about three months.

Unknown to Whyte, his footsteps were being followed by Deng Chol Majek, a Sudanese national who was seeking asylum in the UK and was staying at the hotel.

Majek, who told his trial he was 19, waited near reception before following Whyte to Bescot Stadium railway station.

It was there that Majek carried out what the prosecution described as a “bad and crazy” attack; He stabbed Whyte 23 times with a screwdriver (11 of which penetrated his skull) and left him for dead. He suffered a fatal brain injury and died from his injuries in hospital three days later.

Majek was found guilty of murdering Whyte and possessing an offensive weapon at Wolverhampton crown court on Friday.

During the trial, the prosecution said CCTV showed Majek following Whyte to the train station. Following the attack, footage shows Whyte buying beer from a local store and throwing his phone into the River Tame before returning to the hotel.

In a particularly chilling moment in the trial, jurors were shown a video of Majek dancing and drinking in the hotel parking lot after the attack. The flashing blue lights of emergency services can be seen in the background.

Housing officer Tyler English, who saw Majek after the attack, told the court Majek was “drinking, smoking and just chatting with his group of friends”. The group “almost seemed to be having a good time, in a sense,” he said.

Michelle Heeley KC, representing the prosecution, said Majek was “clearly thrilled with what he had done”.

Hours later, in the early morning hours of October 21, officers arrested Majek and seized several of his belongings, including a jacket, ring, and sandals. Majek remained silent during the police interrogation, which lasted more than 90 minutes.

Heeley told the court Whyte’s blood was found to be on items seized by police. “The defendant’s fingernails were checked, there was DNA under them; the DNA belonged to Rhiannon Whyte.”

The prosecution said the motivation for the attack was “not initially clear”, although Majek’s behavior on the day of the murder disturbed hotel staff.

Staff said Majek was staring at Whyte and his colleagues and making them uncomfortable. Hotel chef Louise Brittle and duty manager Claire Taylor-Bevans said Majek “couldn’t take his eyes off any of us”.

At one point, Brittle said she had to turn her chair around “because of how scary it felt.”

“The way he looked at us. He was at the hotel for about three months. He never interacted with a lot of people. He was a loner,” he said.

Taylor-Bevans said she was “frightened” by this behavior and reported it to security at the hotel. He said Majek “was behind the bar looking at all three of us eerily. As if we weren’t even there.”

The duty manager later described an incident on the day of the attack in which Majek “walked past my arm and struck Rhiannon on the arm” as she was leaving the hotel reception.

Whyte was talking on the phone to a childhood friend when the attack occurred. Giving evidence in court in a videotaped interview, Emma Cowley described how a normal conversation with her friend turned into screams.

“I think I asked him, ‘Where are you now?’ I asked. and he said: ‘I’m just heading towards the station.’ I just remember there was silence and he wasn’t one to just shut up.

“And I said, ‘Rhiannon, are you still there?’ I thought. At first I didn’t hear anything, then I heard a scream. “It was a really high-pitched, terrifying, painful scream.”

Throughout the trial, Majek insisted he was “out at the hotel” at the time of the attack and had no reason to harm or kill Whyte. He told the court that he was not the person who followed him to the train station as seen in CCTV footage shown to the jury.

He also told jurors that he left Sudan in April 2022, when he was 16, and sought asylum in the UK after arriving in July 2024.

Majek, who confirmed that he was married and had a child, said he traveled from Sudan to Libya, Italy and Germany before arriving in the UK in July 2024.

He told the jury he had mistakenly classified himself as 27 on his identity document in Germany.