With the hotel room black but for the glow of a television and a comforter tucked in at her chin, Kauri Tiyme could have been sleeping.
The custodial worker at the Tech Center Marriott who’d walked in on Tiyme during noon rounds Oct. 17, 2008, quietly backed out so as not to disturb her.
Only later that day would investigators discover the cuts and gashes all over Tiyme’s body, the blood-drenched mattress, a trove of poisons and the scalpel and bloody Goldschlager bottle used to kill the 39-year-old tattoo artist.
Ex-husband Keenu Tiyme, 37, has been charged with her murder, and jurors got their first glimpse Tuesday at the bloody details of Kauri Tiyme’s death over four days in Room 9001.
Keenu Tiyme’s defense attorneys said during opening arguments that the deeply disturbed former spouses had decided on a murder-suicide pact, but that the defendant ultimately couldn’t kill himself.
They’re trying to prove that Keenu Tiyme was insane at the time of the killing, which he admits he committed.
“Depression, desperation and devotion. That’s what this case is about,” defense attorney Joyce Akhahenda said in court.
Prosecutors argued that Kauri Tiyme had wanted to live and cast doubts on the defendant’s suicidal intentions.
They said Kauri Tiyme had a new boyfriend, a new business and at one point resisted her death in the hotel room.
