Man gets 60 years for killing 2 women

ST. CROIX - After Miles David entered a plea deal admitting his guilt in the April 2010 murder of two female family members, one of whom was pregnant, V.I. Superior Court Judge Darryl Donohue sentenced him to 60 years in prison on voluntary manslaughter and second-degree murder charges.

David, 49, pleaded guilty to two counts: voluntary manslaughter and second-degree murder. In exchange, the remaining charges were dropped.

By pleading guilty to the two counts, David faced a minimum of five years in prison for the second-degree murder charge and a maximum of 10 years for the voluntary manslaughter charge.

The second-degree murder charge has no sentencing limit. On Wednesday, Donohue sentenced David to 50 years in prison for the second-degree murder charge and gave him the maximum sentence for the manslaughter charge.

Police initially charged David with two counts of first-degree murder, unauthorized possession of a firearm, using a dangerous weapon during a violent crime and first-degree reckless endangerment. After establishing that one of the victims, 19-year-old Alorra Tutien, had been pregnant at the time, however, the V.I. Attorney General's Office added a third first-degree murder count.

The charges stemmed from a violent family argument on April 23, 2010, in Estate Peter's Rest, where David lived with his sister, and ended with David shooting to death his niece, 40-year-old Lorraine Joseph, and his great-niece, Tutien, according to a police investigation.

Joseph and Tutien were mother and daughter.

According to court records and testimony during a detention hearing shortly after David's arrest, the argument spun from David's sister, the property owner, telling David to clean up dog feces behind her house.

David reacted angrily and entered his sister's house and started to attack her, police said.

Another of David's nieces - Joseph's sister - then jumped on him. David threw the niece to the ground and left the premises, police said.

The niece called Joseph, who then drove to the property with her daughter, Tutien.

David was driving away from the location when he was met by Joseph and Tutien, police said.

Joseph confronted David about what had happened, and they started arguing and got into a physical fight, investigators said. Joseph got hold of a three-foot tool that looked to be made of steel, according to police, and started to hit David with it, taking him to the ground.

But David got away from Joseph and walked back to the house, then emerging with what investigators believe was a .22-caliber rifle handgun - described by one police investigator as "a very old-fashioned" handgun with a long muzzle.

As David walked back, witnesses said he fired two shots in the air and started waving the gun in Joseph's face.

The argument continued until David shot Joseph in the neck, investigators said. Joseph's sister was nearby when she was shot, and she tried to apply pressure to the wound and move her away from the scene, but David shot Joseph again, according to police.

Joseph was shot three times in the neck, while Tutien, who still was seated in the vehicle, was shot twice, police said.

No witnesses actually saw David shoot Tutien, investigators said.

David was remanded into the custody of Golden Grove Correctional Facility.

- Contact Daniel Shea at 714-9127 or email dshea@dailynews.vi.

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