A jury on Tuesday found Sakiyna Thompson, 31, guilty of first-degree murder in the July 2022 killing of her romantic rival, 23-year-old Kayla Hodgson. Thompson, a native of Jamaica, could face life in prison.
Hodgson’s family expressed relief and joy over the verdict, hugging each other in the courtroom.
“We’re just so thankful in this moment that the jury was able to see the story for what it is, that Kayla did not deserve to die the way that she did,” family members said.
Prosecutors alleged that Thompson flew from New York to South Florida days before the murder with the intent to kill Hodgson, who had been dating Thompson’s ex-boyfriend. Authorities said Thompson was enraged after Hodgson blocked her on social media following a series of tense messages.
During the trial, jurors heard four hours of closing arguments centered on whether Thompson had planned the killing or acted in self-defense. Prosecutors described Thompson as “jealous and insecure,” while defense attorneys argued she acted to protect herself and her unborn child.
In July 2022, Thompson confronted Hodgson at her Tamarac apartment at 5 a.m., and the encounter escalated into a fatal struggle. Jurors were shown graphic police body camera footage of the crime scene, where Hodgson was found stabbed dozens of times.
“Being violated in your own home, in the sanctity of your own home, is a scary thing,” said Tonya Johnson, an assistant state prosecutor. “What’s even scarier is being attacked, being brutally murdered in your own home, and that person getting away with it.”
Thompson testified that she had gone to Hodgson’s apartment uninvited to talk “woman-to-woman” about their shared romantic interest. She said the discussion quickly turned violent.
“She just starts grabbing my hair and punching me,” Thompson told jurors. “I’m on the floor. I’m kicking. I’m trying to get up to fight back at this point cause now it’s a fight.”
At the time, Thompson said she was two months pregnant. She claimed Hodgson struck her over the head with a hookah stem and slashed her stomach with a piece of glass.
“I killed her because she took the glass from the hookah and slashed me across my stomach,” Thompson said. “I told her I was pregnant and I felt like she was trying to hurt my baby. I didn’t just fight for me. I fought for me and my baby.”
After the struggle, Thompson admitted to panicking, cleaning parts of the scene with Lysol wipes and paper towels, discarding her bloody clothes, and changing into Hodgson’s outfit before leaving. Surveillance footage later showed her exiting the apartment complex in different clothing from when she arrived around 4 a.m.
“I was pregnant, and I just killed somebody,” she told the courtroom, explaining why she did not call the police.
Defense attorneys insisted that Thompson did not initiate the fight and that the killing was unplanned.
“She thought, ‘Oh, God, she’s coming for me and my baby,'” said Ros Meritxell, a defense attorney. “That’s when she grabs the glass, and she blacks out. She knows she slashed, she’s not saying she didn’t cause that, she can’t tell you the order that it happened in. This was a fight, a mutual fight.”
The state said Thompson attempted to conceal her identity that night by wearing a hat and a COVID-19 mask and using a fake Uber account to travel to and from the apartment. The defense countered that there was no evidence Thompson brought a weapon and that Hodgson allowed her into her home.
The jury’s guilty verdict brings a close to a case that captured Broward County’s attention and highlights the tragic consequences of jealousy and violence.
