Related: Return of the Jeudi
"Fatal Dorchester stabbing was in self-defense, DA says" by Evan Allen and John R. Ellement, Globe Staff November 17, 2014
A Dorchester woman acted in self-defense when she fatally stabbed her former boyfriend to death inside her apartment this summer and will not be facing criminal charges, Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley’s office said Monday.
The woman told the Globe after the July 31 episode that she had armed herself with a knife during an intense confrontation with her former boyfriend, Emmanuel Jeudi, but then stabbed the 29-year-old man when he rushed at her.
“I just wanted to scare him, but he charged at me,” said the 26-year-old woman after the attack.
The woman was not arrested at the time and both Conley’s office and Boston police have since been investigating the circumstances of the fatal stabbing, the forensic evidence, and the personal history between Jeudi and the woman, which included one arrest and one restraining order.
“The use of lethal force in self-defense can be prosecuted in some circumstances, but criminal charges were not appropriate given these facts,” Conley explained in a statement.
The woman said she was defending herself from her ex-boyfriend when she fatally stabbed him Thursday in her apartment.
“There was no evidence of excessive force, premeditation, or malice. This was a case of a domestic violence victim protecting herself against serious injury or worse at the hands of her abuser inside her own home.”
The state medical examiner’s office concluded that Jeudi was killed by a single stab wound that penetrated his heart, Conley’s office said.
According to Conley’s office, the investigation concluded that the woman’s account — given to police moments after it happened and in calls to 911 before the stabbing — “was corroborated in almost every respect.’’
For example, the woman — whose name was not released because she was a victim of a crime — told police Jeudi grabbed her phone and broke it. Prosecutors said Jeudi’s palm print was found on the phone.
Prosecutors said the woman’s account was also supported by witnesses.
She told police that Jeudi had beaten and choked her that night during a long period of turbulence inside the apartment and neighbors said they could hear the noise.
The woman said she had two daughters, 4 and 2, and she told the Globe that both were in the apartment when the fight started around 7 p.m. on July 31. The 2-year-old is Jeudi’s child.
The woman said in the Globe interview, she and Jeudi began quarreling that night in their daughter’s room and she asked him to leave.
Jeudi told her he was going to take their 2-year-old with him, and she said no, she said.
He physically assaulted her and ridiculed her when she grabbed a knife to defend herself, she said. “I’ll kill you,” he told her, she said.
She made it into the kitchen, and he tried to take her cellphone, then kicked her down. She grabbed a knife and pointed it at him, she said.
“He laughed. I’ll never forget his laugh,” she said. “He said, ‘You gonna pull a knife on me?’ That’s when he charged me.”
That was when she stabbed him once, she said.
Jeudi ran into the hallway. The woman followed him, calling 911 and attempting CPR.
“I was telling him, ‘Stay calm, apply pressure,’ ” she said. “I don’t know CPR. I was pushing on his chest. He was already dead.”
--more--"
