Read more
* Dalton store slaying suspect faces multiple charges * Mims’ attorney claims case of mistaken identity * Live updates from Skyy Mims hearing * Murder trial against aspiring model and rapper begins * Mims trial turns to video evidence * Live updates on Day 4 of Mims murder trial * Jury quickly convicts Skyy Mims * Woman linked to Mims murder trial feared arrest
Matt Hamilton/The Daily Citizen
Skyy Mims stands and looks around the courtroom during a recess Wednesday, April 29, 2015.
A display with flowers, a collection jar and a photo of Dahyabhai Kalidas Chaudmari, the clerk murdered at Kanku’s convenience, sits near the entrance of Kanku’s in Dalton, Ga., on Wednesday, March 12, 2014. Skyy Raven Marie Mims is accused of killing Chaudmari.Skyy Raven Marie Mims, who was quickly convicted in May of stabbing a convenience store clerk to death, found out her fate at her sentencing hearing in court today: life in prison without parole.
Previously, a jury in Whitfield County Superior Court convicted Mims of 11 charges, including murder and armed robbery. After a weeklong trial, the jury deliberated for 52 minutes.
Mims’ attorney, Carla Marable, said the people deciding her client’s fate made their decision too quickly.
Mims, 22, moved to the Atlanta area in January 2014 to make connections in the entertainment industry. She wanted to be a rapper, dancer, model and fashion designer.
Her roommates testified this week that she hoped to fund her creative ambitions by winning the lottery. On March 9, 2014, somebody beat, stabbed and smothered 37-year-old Dahyabhai Kalidas Chaudhari in the back of his Kanku’s Express convenience store on Airport Road in Dalton.
The killer took hundreds of dollars. And about 80 scratch-off lottery tickets.
Mims burst into laughter several times during the trial, including three times as Marable made a closing argument on her behalf. But when the court clerk read the jury’s verdict, she stood still, unblinking.
Marable maintained during the trial that Mims’ Detroit acquaintances framed her for the crime. She lived with Kylle Alexander-Music Harewell, a music producer who had moved to Georgia. Harewell is friends with a rapper named Keisha Jones, who looks similar to Mims — though Mims is 11 inches taller and more than 10 years younger.
On the night of the murder, Marable said, Harewell and Jones could have taken the car that Mims was using.
“Isn’t it possible that he and Keisha used the Kia Soul and did this together?” she asked the jury. “It’s possible he’s the getaway driver.”
But District Attorney Bert Poston said this theory didn’t make sense. When they arrested Mims, they found latex gloves, a knife and red duct tape, the type that the killer used on Chaudhari’s eyes and mouth after stabbing him.
The gloves held Mims’ skin cells on the inside, Chaudhari’s blood on the outside. His blood also stained the duct tape and the knife. Plus, Poston said, Marable never proved that Jones was in Georgia near the time of the murder.
“They don’t really look similar,” Poston told the jury. “It’s superficial. … They’re both female. They’re both African-American. They’re both light skinned.”