Self-described ‘sadist’ accused of killing woman from fetish site had disturbing images on his phone, prosecutors say

OCALA, Fla. (Court TV) — The man accused of killing a woman he met on a fetish website has asked a judge to block prosecutors from showing the jury disturbing images that were found on his phone.

Dwain Hall, 54, has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and kidnapping in the death of Sonia Exelby, 32. Exelby, a native of the U.K., allegedly traveled to the United States to meet the defendant after chatting with him online for two years.

Judge Timothy McCourt presided over a Williams hearing on Tuesday. Williams hearings generally address evidence of prior bad acts that prosecutors want to show the jury; in this case, prosecutors asked permission to show the jury photos found on the defendant’s phone.

Some of the images showed Exelby “in states of undress,” digital forensic examiner Brian Hempstead testified at the hearing. “One image of her with a knife between her breasts. An image of her with a knife against her neck. And there were face shots: portrait-like images.” In a video showing Exelby on a couch, being questioned by a man off camera, Exelby had visible bruises on her body.

While those images are considered direct evidence in the case, prosecutors focused on other photos Hempstead found on Hall’s device. Those images, which were not shown publicly, were described as depicting rape, torture and other sadistic behaviors. Hempstead said the images were not taken on Hall’s device; they were found in Google Chrome’s cache, meaning the photos appeared on websites Hall had visited.

Hempstead said that while the images were not actively downloaded by the phone’s user, they also weren’t the result of simple pop-ups. “You’d have to go to the website, and it’s going to cache that website,” he explained. “Pop-ups are ads, sales, redirects — not content. Normally, if you go to websites, you’ll see them trying to sell you something or trying to redirect you to another site. That’s what pop-ups are. Pop-ups aren’t images of nasty things.”

Under cross-examination, Hempstead conceded that he had not performed the forensic extractions of the device himself and that he had never actually seen Hall’s phone.

Many of the images, Hempstead testified, came from the now-defunct website motherless.com. He described the site as featuring extreme BDSM and fetish content, including “a lot of torture content, rape-like content. It’s known to have [child sex abuse material].”

In an interview with Special Agent Rebecca McKinsey of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Hall allegedly admitted to having a profile on motherless.com and chatting with Exelby for approximately two years, both there and on the encrypted “Session” app. Hall said that on the website, his username was “AlphaSadist” and his biography read, “Hmmm, well, I am a sadist. I like 18- to 25-year-olds generally. I enjoy mother/daughter sets as slaves. Would love to find a domestic pain slut for complete control.”

“He did not admit to killing [Exelby], but he did indicate he was the last person to see her alive,” McKinsey testified Tuesday. “He did get rid of her belongings, some of which he put into a donation bin, which we recovered, and [he indicated] that she was happy with what happened with her.”

Hall’s phone records led investigators to a wooded area of Marion County, where Exelby’s body was found. She was wearing only a bra and her shoes, and she had been stabbed four times, the medical examiner determined. Investigators said they recovered a knife the defendant sent to a friend in Ohio, which tested positive for Exelby’s blood and DNA.

Hall’s attorney, Junior Barrett, argued that the photos from the websites, some of which portrayed nude women being fitted with nooses, were irrelevant to the current case. “None of these photographs are consistent with what occurred in this case,” he said. “None of these photographs depicts Mr. Hall.”

McCourt agreed that Hall was not in any of the photographs, but pushed back on Barrett’s claim, referencing the video of Exelby found on Hall’s phone. “If she said he choked her during sex, the noose is, perhaps, a more extreme form of choking, no?” McCourt asked. “Some of them strike me as similar here.”

McCourt said he would take the issue under advisement and issue a written ruling quickly, noting that jury selection is scheduled to begin on Nov. 16. Prosecutor Amy Beth Berndt confirmed that the state was not extending any plea offers to the defendant, at the request of the victim’s family.