Nia Wilson’s killer gets life sentence
John Lee Cowell, the man convicted of fatally stabbing 18yearold Nia Wilson to death two years ago at the MacArthur BART Station in Oakland, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in a virtual hearing Friday.
Judge Allan Hymer imposed the sentence after emotional statements from five of Wilson’s family members, including two sisters who were with her when she was brutally slashed with a knife while getting off a BART train on July 22, 2018.
“You took our baby,” said her sister Tashiya Wilson, 22, who was present at the time of the attack. She said she wished Cowell had received the death penalty, “because it would make you suffer as much as I will for the rest of my life.”
Letifah Wilson, a sister who was also stabbed, said that while she recovered from her injuries, she will never recover from seeing her sister killed.
“I can never forgive you for that,” she said, before adding that she would try “for the peace of my family.”
Alicia Grayson, Nia Wilson’s mother, said she was pleased that “justice was served” and Cowell “better pray to God that he can sleep every night and go on living.”
Cowell did not address the court except to ask a procedural question.
The sentencing comes three months after Hymer took an unusual step by halting what would have been the third day of jury deliberations and rendered a verdict that Cowell was sane when he fatally stabbed the Wilson sisters. Cowell had pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.
Before the sentencing Friday, Cowell’s public defender, Christina Moore, tried again to convince the court that her client was not mentally capable.
“I believe my client is incompetent, has always been incompetent and I believe he is still incompetent,” she said.
The judge upheld the verdict and proceeded with the sentencing.
Hymer ruled Cowell was sane in a March 16 hearing, which came a day after Gov. Gavin Newsom directed people 65 and older to isolate themselves at home due to the coronavirus pandemic. Several of the 12 jurors — as well as Hymer — are over 65.
A jury of eight women and four men deliberated less than four hours on March 10 before finding Cowell guilty of firstdegree murder for Wilson’s death and attempted murder for the nonfatal stabbing of Letifah Wilson.
BART surveillance cameras captured the brutal knife attack on video, which was then shown to jurors. Footage shows Cowell pulled a knife out of his pants as he followed the Wilson sisters onto a train and later attacked them as they exited at the MacArthur Station. He ran from the scene of the crime and pointed officers to the platform and away from himself before changing clothes and dumping his backpack a block away from the stabbing.
He was diagnosed with schizophrenia, but prosecutors argued that Cowell’s mental disorder wasn’t to blame for the crime.
Prosecutor Butch Ford argued during the trial that Cowell’s actions after the attack — running from the scene, dumping evidence and changing clothes — were “goaloriented” behaviors that contradicted the defense’s theory of a delusional breakdown.
“He knew what he did was wrong, and he did everything he could to get away with it,” Ford said in March.
Cowell testified that he believed Nia Wilson and her two sisters, one of whom was not injured, were aliens and part of a gang that had kidnapped his grandmother.
“I stabbed both of the females in the crew, because I believed they would not give my grandmother back,” he said from the witness stand in Alameda County court.
The 29yearold’s testimony ranged from incoherent — at one point, he launched into a tangent about aliens, radios and “fake skin” — to confusion over how to answer his attorney’s questions. Cowell said he has a history of mental illness and heard voices in his head, but he could not remember what those voices told him.
In a statement to the court, Candace Hayes lamented the death of her cousin, saying Nia Wilson was ready to take on the world.
“She had so many big plans that were cut short,” Hayes said. “Her body may be gone, but her spirit lives on.”