In an emotional sentencing of the man who killed Morgan Freeman’s granddaughter, the defendant’s family screamed that it was all the famed “Shawshank Redemption” actor’s fault, alleging that he sexually abused the victim when she was younger.
“Morgan Freeman molested her and he caused this. He did this,” Lamar Davenport’s mother yelled to a reporter as she was ushered out of court for shouting to her son when Justice Ellen Biben handed down a 20-year sentence.
“He’s innocent! It was an accident!” she insisted.
The allegations of an affair between Freeman and his step-granddaughter E’Dena Hines were made by the defense during Davenport’s murder trial in Manhattan Supreme Court. Freeman has strongly denied the allegations.
Davenport was convicted of stabbing Hines, who was his girlfriend, more than 25 times Aug. 16, 2015, on West 162nd Street.
He was in the throes of a PCP-induced rage when he slaughtered Hines in full view of neighbors and pedestrians.
In a partial win for the defense, Davenport was found guilty of the lesser included charge of manslaughter. He waived a jury trial, leaving his fate entirely in the hands of Biben.
Hines’s niece, Ayanna Freeman, and biological mother, Deena Adair, delivered heart-wrenching victim impact statements.
“My soulmate was taken from me, and ever since then I continue to feel the emptiness,” Ayanna Freeman choked into the microphone, often taking long pauses to compose herself.
“We shared so many of my first experiences together. There were supposed to be other firsts that she cannot and will not be a part of. This experience has forever changed me as a person.”
Adair is the daughter of Freeman’s first wife, Jeanette Adair Bradshaw, and another man.
Hines was adopted and raised by Freeman and his second wife, Myrna Colley-Lee.
Hines and her biological mother were just starting to reconnect, and the two spent time together the day she was murdered.
“How could I know it would be the last time I would see her or hear her voice?” asked Adair, tearfully.
“There is a void in our family. Those were our last laughs together, and I’ll never be able to hold my child again. I will never see her get married or have children. There will forever be an empty seat at our family gatherings.”