Wichita woman in beheading case found guilty of first-degree murder
The case came down to the question of whether the beheading was premeditated.
Did Rachael Hilyard plan to kill Micki Davis by decapitation when she used two kitchen steak knives to sever her head from her body on April 9, 2017?
Or did she carry out the gruesome deed because she thought Davis was already dead?
A Wichita jury tasked with deciding spent two days this week hearing evidence and testimony. In the end, after deliberating for less than four hours, jurors sided with the state, rejecting arguments from Hilyard’s attorney that her attack on the 63-year-old grandmother was simply a matter of “bad decisions” that didn’t involve a plan for murder.
The jury convicted Hilyard, 38, of first-degree premeditated murder, a charge that will send her to prison for life without parole eligibility for 50 years. Her sentencing is March 27.
Davis’ son, Jeremy Rush, said his family is grateful that jurors saw through a story Hilyard told in court about how an altercation between the women over a painting led to a wrestling match that Hilyard thought left Davis dead and in need of a decapitation to free her soul from her body.
“Thank God that she is off the streets so this doesn’t happen to anybody else’s family,” Rush said of Hilyard in an interview after Sedgwick County District Court Judge Bruce Brown’s assistant read aloud the jury’s decision at about 2:40 p.m. Thursday.
The family is “very happy with the verdict. It was exactly what we wanted,” Rush said.
“Just sitting in the same room with her has been very rough.”
The verdict came after jurors heard two days of testimony this week from police officers, a DNA expert, the local coroner, residents of the southwest neighborhood where the beheading happened and Hilyard herself. Jurors also saw crime scene and autopsy photos, police body camera footage showing Hilyard calm and compliant after she was taken into custody, and a video-taped interview detectives had with a young grandchild of Davis’ who witnessed the early moments of the assault and ran for help. The boy did not see any of the decapitation.
According to evidence presented this week in court, Hilyard called Davis the day of the attack to tell her to pick up some property that belonged to her son, whom Hilyard had been dating, or she would put it out by the curb. Davis took her 9-year-old grandson to 1426 W. Rita to retrieve the items at about 1 p.m.
But after they got into the garage, Hilyard suddenly attacked and began beating Davis, the grandson said in the police interview shown in court.
The boy ran to Davis’ truck when she pleaded for help, locked himself in and dialed 911 from her cellphone.
Hilyard followed, tried to open the truck door and asked the boy who he was calling. After he told her 911, she went back into the house, got a black-handled steak knife out of a kitchen drawer and walked into the garage where Davis was reportedly lying.
Hilyard retrieved a second steak knife when the blade on the first one broke. She left Davis’ severed head in her kitchen sink when the decapitation was complete.
When police arrived, they found Hilyard crouching in her bathroom, covered with blood.
Testimony given earlier this week indicated Davis may have been unconscious but was alive when Hilyard cut her. The coroner ruled her cause of death to be sharp force injuries to the neck.
Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett during 30 minutes of closing arguments Thursday morning told jurors that Hilyard attacked Davis “without provocation” and took steps to make sure no one would see the decapitation including closing the garage, locking doors and drawing the window shades on her home.
“For her own reasons, Rachael Hilyard had had it with Micki,” he said, adding that there was “no provocation, no words. Rachael said nothing” when she started the assault.
“She beats her down. She goes back for one knife. She goes back for another” after the blade broke, he said.
“Does that not tell you there’s premeditation here?”
Hilyard’s defense attorney, Quentin Pittman, in his closing arguments acknowledged that his client killed Davis.
But he said Hilyard thought Davis was already dead when she severed her head. Hilyard testified Wednesday that Davis wasn’t moving and she didn’t think she was breathing.
“What we have are bad decisions and horrible consequences,” Pittman told jurors.
“My client killed Miss Davis. But there’s no premeditation.”
In addition to first-degree premeditated murder, the jury was also given the option of convicting Hilyard of a less-severe homicide charge of second-degree murder or involuntary manslaughter. Although her mental state has been in question throughout the case — leading to multiple competency evaluations since 2017 — how her sanity might have played into her actions was not used as a defense because Kansas has one of the most restrictive law for citing mental illness in criminal cases.
The fact that a local church performed an exorcism at Hilyard’s home in the days before the decapitation — to eradicate “evil spirits” Hilyard told The Eagle in a 2017 jailhouse interview — also did not come up at the trial.
This story was originally published February 6, 2020 at 12:04 PM.
