Morgan Freeman ‘had sexual relationship with his step-granddaughter’
moRGAn Freeman had an ‘inappropriate relationship’ with his stepgranddaughter, a court has heard.
The claims about the 80-year-old Hollywood actor and e’Dena Hines emerged at the trial of her boyfriend Lamar Davenport, who is accused of murdering her in 2015.
Lawyers for Davenport have introduced text message exchanges in which miss Hines talked about having ‘grandpa feelings’. She was 45 years younger than the oscar-winning star.
Defence lawyer Annie Costanzo earlier told the trial in new York that shortly before her death miss Hines, who was 33, told her rapper boyfriend and others that ‘her grandfather engaged in a sexually inappropriate relationship with her’.
Six weeks before Davenport allegedly killed her, miss Hines texted him to say she was having issues with an older man, the trial heard. ‘I don’t ask him for advice,’ she wrote, according to the new York Daily news. ‘He was calling to ask me…I blocked him for myself not for you because men who equal grandpa feelings don’t need to be in my life at all.’
During their text chat about the state of their relationship, Davenport wrote back that ‘when it comes to … your grandfather, there’s a submissive love that will always be there’.
He suggested in a message that as her boyfriend, he had to accept that fact.
miss Hines and Freeman were not blood relations. She was the daughter of Deena Adair, whose mother Jeanette was Freeman’s first wife. The actor and his second wife myrna Colley-Lee later adopted miss Hines and raised her as their own from her early childhood.
She became an actress and worked with her grandfather in several films. Rumours about Freeman and miss Hines circulated for nearly a decade. In 2009 it was claimed the actor planned to marry her. At the time, he was 72 and she was 27.
The national enquirer reported that the affair had destroyed Freeman’s second marriage, which ended in 2010. But the pair denied any affair when the rumours surfaced.
Davenport is accused of stabbing miss Hines to death in a frenzied attack in front of their home in new York’s Washington Heights neighbourhood.
Witnesses said he sounded as if he was exorcising her as he allegedly stabbed her 25 times with a hunting knife.
A neighbour claimed he shouted: ‘Get out, devils! I cast you out, devils! In the name of Jesus Christ, I cast you out!’ miss Hines was heard crying: ‘Why are you doing this?’
Defence lawyers say Davenport was in the grip of psychosis after taking the hallucinogenic drug PCP and so not responsible for her death. He faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted.
no details have been disclosed to the court about the victim’s alleged relationship with Freeman, including when it started.
A therapist has told the trial that Davenport admitted frequently arguing with miss Hines about infidelity and both had accused each other of being unfaithful. During their nineyear relationship, Davenport fathered children with other women and abused drugs.
The jury has been shown footage she recorded hours before her killing which shows him drunk and yelling at her.