June 19, 2013

Wedding stabber gets 17 years in boyfriend's murder

BY: SCOTT MCCABE JANUARY 17, 2013 | 8:00 PM
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A District woman was sentenced to 17 years in prison for fatally stabbing her boyfriend after accusing him of not paying enough attention to her at a wedding reception.

Dominique Bassil, 26, was found guilty by a D.C. jury of second-degree murder while armed in November in the stabbing death of her boyfriend, Vance Harris II.

According to charging documents, on the evening of Aug. 12, 2011, Bassil complained that Harris, 28, a member of the wedding party, was not spending enough time with her.

Bassil pushed Harris in the face and struck him, witnesses said.

Later that night, Capitol Heights police found the couple on the side of a road. Police noticed that Harris' tuxedo had been torn, while Bassil didn't have any injuries and her clothes were intact. Neither complained of an assault, and police permitted them to go home.

About 3 a.m., Bassil was seen on surveillance video leaving her building wearing only a pink nightcap and panties and carrying a knife. The footage captured her throwing the 12-inch stainless-steel knife in a trash can before going to the security guard booth to report that she stabbed her boyfriend because he was beating her.

Seconds after Bassil left her building, surveillance video showed Harris leaving out the front door holding a stab wound to his arm dripping with blood.

The 6-foot-8, 240-pound Harris knocked on a neighbor's door for help and fell unconscious in the hallway, where he died.

Medical examiners said the cause of death was a knife cut into the main artery in Harris' leg. He also suffered a stab wound to the abdomen that penetrated the liver.

smccabe@washingtonexaminer.com

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