Guilty verdict in San Diego hotel murder case
A man accused of beating a woman to death at a downtown San Diego hotel, then dumping her body in a shower was convicted Friday of first-degree murder.
Jason Bradwell Lewis, 41, was charged in the death of Jhordann Rust, 26, a Wisconsin woman who had arrived in San Diego shortly before she was killed.
Her body was found Dec. 14 in a common shower area of the 500 West Hotel on Broadway near Columbia Street. She had been severely beaten, mostly in the head and neck area, and her jaw was broken.
The Superior Court jury deliberated less than a day before finding Lewis guilty.
Prosecutors said Rust traveled to San Diego with her fiancé, Cory Nowell, and the couple checked into the hotel on Dec. 12.
The fiancé was arrested that evening after the couple got into an argument and Nowell allegedly pushed Rust.
Deputy District Attorney Melissa Vasel said during her closing arguments Thursday that Rust had gotten locked out of the hotel room she and her fiancé shared. She couldn’t get a new key because the room wasn’t registered in her name.
Scared and alone, she called family members “to help her feel safe,” the prosecutor said.
It was during a call Rust made to her mother in Wisconsin that the beating took place. Rust’s mother heard a commotion and her daughter’s cries before the call dropped suddenly.
“My daughter is being attacked right now in San Diego,” she told a 911 dispatcher in Chippewa Falls, Wis., hoping to be connected to California authorities.
When that failed, she called San Diego police.
“Hopelessness, powerlessness. Those feelings have permeated this case,” Vasel told the jury, explaining how Rust’s mother felt knowing her daughter was far away from her and in danger.
The prosecutor argued that Nowell was in a similar position when he was released from jail the morning of Dec. 14. He returned to the hotel to find Rust gone, but nearly all of her belongings were still in their room.
He, too, called for help and learned that Rust’s mother had filed a missing person report.
“I’m homeless. I just got out of jail,” he told 911. “I don’t know what to do next.”
Later, he learned that Rust’s body had been found in a shower on the floor below where they had been staying.
Investigators learned that Rust was with Lewis, a resident at the hotel, the night she was killed. Their images were captured on a security camera recording at a nearby convenience store where they bought a bottle of wine.
A witness saw Rust enter Lewis’ room.
“She never leaves that room alive again,” the prosecutor said.
Vasel told the jury that Lewis beat the victim inside his room, possibly for his own sadistic purposes, stuffed her body into a suitcase and carried it to another floor of the hotel where there were fewer occupants. He also disposed of the bed sheets and mattress pad, which were found later in a hotel trashcan.
Police found signs of a struggle inside Lewis’ room. The legs of the bed were broken and a part of the wall above the bed looked discolored, as if someone had wiped it clean. They also found the suitcase with Rust’s blood inside it.
Lewis’ DNA was found on her body. Rust’s blood was on Lewis’ clothes.
Deputy Public Defender Jason Conge argued in trial that the prosecutor had left several questions left unanswered in her explanation of the case. Among them: What went wrong? Was there a fight? Were drugs and alcohol involved?
Conge said his client had no motive to kill the victim, and that tests revealed Rust had toxic levels of alcohol and methamphetamine in her system.
But it wasn’t enough to persuade the jurors to acquit Lewis of the murder charge.
At least one juror cried as she listened to the prosecutor’s description of the attack during closing arguments. As the juror left the courtroom Friday after the verdict, she spoke softly to Rust’s family members.
“God bless you guys,” she said.
Lewis, who has prior convictions for residential burglary and battery, is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 16. He faces a possible sentence of 56 years to life in prison.
dana.littlefield@sduniontribune.com
Twitter: @danalittlefield
