SELMA, AL (WSFA) -
Nearly four years after the body of Dallas County resident Shamika Walton was found, justice is being served. Walton's ex boyfriend pleaded guilty to manslaughter Monday. Dallas County District Attorney Michael Jackson confirmed that Rodriguez Simpson admitted to the woman's death.
Simpson will spend the next twenty years in prison.
The case started shortly after Walton's mother reported her missing back on November 21, 2008, and the investigation found that Simpson was the last person to see her alive.
Less than a week later, Darnell Gee, Simpson's cousin, told police that his relative admitted to killing Walton the evening she disappeared. Gee further told police that Simpson was driving his girlfriend's car and that he'd seen her body in the trunk. She was dressed in her night clothes. Gee told police he advised his cousin that he wanted nothing to do with the situation and told him to leave.
Police say Gee told them that Simpson dumped the woman's body in a wooded area near a home his mother was building. Police were dispatched to the area where they subsequently found the woman's remains.
Simpson was questioned about the death. He told told police he and Walton had an argument at which point he knocked her into a table or piece of furniture. He then admitted to punching her in the face.
Simpson said he tried to revive the woman, but was not successful. It was at that point that he put her in the truck of her car and disposed of the body.
Another witness whom police spoke to, Britnee Hynes, told investigators that Simpson had recently thrown a carton of eggs at Walton because she was busy doing school work. Hynes went on to tell police that Simpson later returned, unannounced and angry, to Walton's home where he took back shirts and shoes he'd given to Walton for their 3-year-old child as a form of revenge.
Simpson had a history of domestic violence at the time of his arrest.
"Rodriguez needs to pack his suitcase," D.A. Jackson said, "because he is going to go off to prison for a long time."
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