Jury convicts Jonathan Broyhill of first-degree murder in death of Democratic strategist
RALEIGH (WTVD) -- A jury convicted Jonathan Broyhill of first-degree murder in the death of Jamie Hahn Wednesday after less than 90 minutes of deliberations.
He was also convicted of attempted first-degree murder for attacking Hahn's husband Nation when he came to her rescue in April 2013. He was also found guilty of assault with a deadly weapon.
Broyhill worked for Jamie - who was a prominent North Carolina Democratic Party strategist - as a bookkeeper. Broyhill was also a childhood friend of Nation's and served as best man at the couple's wedding.
However, Broyhill spent years deceiving the Hahns, claiming he had several diseases including multiple sclerosis, required gall bladder surgery, and had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He also embezzled more than $46,500 from the campaign of Congressman Brad Miller - which Jamie was responsible for running.
It was at a meeting at the Hahn's home where Jamie was confronting Broyhill about the missing money that the stabbings occurred.
The verdict was a huge relief to the family and friends of the victim who have waited two years for justice for the brutal stabbing death of Jamie Hahn.
Many thought the dramatic closing argument from Defense Attorney Joe Arbour may have influenced the jury.
Arbour said the motive for the crime was not the tens of thousands of dollars Broyhill embezzled from a campaign account he managed for the political consulting company of his close friend, Jamie Hahn.
He said Broyhill's self-inflicted stab wounds happened before Broyhill stabbed Jamie Hahn.
"He had finally reached a point where this is it, I'm going, I'm checking out and these people are trying to stop me," said Arbour. "Look at that crime scene. Look at her injuries, front, back, side, face all over. This is an act of wild violence. This isn't somebody who just has some specific intent to stab somebody in the back. This is a guy gone wild."
The prosecutor fired back pointing out that Broyhill confessed but never said he stabbed himself first, and he asked who would buy a knife to commit suicide and, if they did, who would stab themselves to death at their best friends' house.
He called Broyhill a master manipulator who planned the killing and the jury apparently believed it.
Broyhill will be sentenced Thursday at 9 a.m. State law requires an automatic life in prison sentence.
Statement by the family of Jamie Kirk Hahn
"We are gratified by the jury's verdict, and we are grateful to so many people: the members of the jury; Doug Faucette, Karen Scott, Abbie Lefever, Lorrin Freeman and the entire staff of the District Attorney's Office; Judge Paul Ridgeway; Detective Zeke Morse and the entire Raleigh Police Department; all of the State's witnesses; and the many, many friends and family members who have supported and sustained us through the difficult weeks of this trial and these terrible twenty-three months.
"We know that difficult times still lie ahead. We will never be able to fill the hole left in our lives by the death of Jamie. We would give all that we have to have Jamie with us, to see her grow older and become a mother, and to witness the difference she would have made in the world.
"Jamie's death is a loss not just for our present and future, but for so many who were robbed of so much - the children Jamie and Nation would have parented, the lives that she would have changed for the better, the causes that she would have worked for, and the strangers who would have been greeted by her essential kindness, laughter and smile.
"We will strive to keep her smile, her service and her spirit alive through the work of the Jamie Kirk Hahn Foundation."
