Woman Acquitted In Fatal Stabbing At Stone Horse Dormitories In 2022

HARWICH – A woman who was charged in connection with the stabbing death of a fellow resident of the Stone Horse dormitories in Harwich Port in 2022 has been acquitted by a Barnstable Superior Court jury. Aneka Brown was found not guilty of murder in what her attorneys described as a case of self defense.

 It took the jury less than 24 hours to hand down not guilty verdicts in the case, one for the charge of murder and one for assault and battery with a dangerous weapon causing serious bodily injury. The trial ended on Oct. 23; published reports indicate that Brown remained in the custody of immigration officials because she had overstayed the terms of her guest worker visa as a result of her incarceration awaiting trial. She is a native of Jamaica.

 A member of the housekeeping staff at Chatham Bars Inn, Brown was a resident of the dormitories at 860 Route 28 at the time of the Nov. 7, 2022 incident. At about 9:15 a.m., police and an ambulance were called to the dormitories for a report of a man who had been stabbed. They arrived to find 30-year-old Akeem Drysdale in the back of a pickup truck with a stab wound to the left side of his chest, with Brown putting pressure on his wound. Bystanders were assisting. Harwich Fire Department rescuers rushed Drysdale to Cape Cod Hospital, where an emergency room doctor pronounced him dead shortly after 10 a.m.

 According to police reports of the incident, Brown and Drysdale were together in her room that morning, and she was making breakfast when he made sexual advances. Brown’s defense team argued that she had suffered a history of domestic violence at Drysdale’s hands, and the stabbing was an act of self defense.The stabbing occurred at the Stone Horse dormitories in Harwich Port on Nov. 7, 2022. FILE PHOTO