Inset: Ryan Christopher Hopkins (Hinds County Sheriff). Background: The area where Hopkins dumped the body of Celeste McDonald (WLBT).
In Mississippi, a man aged 39 has been sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison for the murder of a 21-year-old woman in 2019. The woman had accused him of sexual assault and stood her ground by not retracting her statement.
Ryan Christopher Hopkins was given a life sentence without the possibility of parole and an extra 20 years for killing Celeste McDonald. The district attorney, Jody E. Owens II, referred to Hopkins as a “throat-slashing murderer” and stated that her death was linked to a “love triangle plot.”
The judgment was handed down following Hopkins’s conviction by a jury on the charge of first-degree murder. Additionally, he was found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder, leading to the imposition of the extra 20-year sentence.
Hopkins girlfriend at the time, Yolonda Torns, was convicted on one count of second-degree murder in McDonald’s death. After committing the murder and cover-up together, Hopkins and Torns were married later that same day.
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Torns reached a plea deal with prosecutors last year in which she was required to cooperate with investigators and testify against Hopkins in his murder trial. She was subsequently sentenced to 25 years in prison — a 40-year sentence with 15 years suspended.
“There are crimes that shake you, and then there are crimes that haunt you. This was both,” Owens said in a statement to Jackson NBC affiliate WLBT. “Celeste’s death was planned, executed, and followed by a wedding. That is evil. Today’s verdict proves that cruelty knows no limits, but justice trumps cruelty.”
According to a report from Jackson CBS affiliate WJTV, McDonald was initially reported missing on March 31, 2019. Her body was found the following day in a roadside ditch that had been covered with bricks near Mound, Louisiana.
Investigators with the Jackson Police Department soon learned that McDonald in March 2019 accused Hopkins of sexually assaulting her. Just over a week after McDonald reported the alleged rape, investigators say he and Torns drove to McDonald’s home in Forest, Mississippi where they picked her up and transported her to a residence on Belvedere Drive, about 45 miles east of Jackson, according to Jackson ABC affiliate WAPT.
Once at the home with McDonald, Torns went back out to a local Walmart where she purchased bleach, detergent, and plastic wrap before returning to the home on Belvedere Drive, Torns testified, per WJTV. When she got back, Torns reportedly told authorities that Hopkins used a knife to slash McDonald’s throat. Torns herself then grabbed a second knife, which she used to stab McDonald.
The duo wrapped McDonald’s body in the recently-purchased plastic wrap and drove across state lines to Louisiana, where they disposed of her body in a the ditch, tossing numerous bricks on top of her remains.
Later that day, authorities said that Hopkins and Torns went back to Jackson where they got married, thinking it would prevent the State from forcing them to testify against each other. Under Mississippi, spousal privilege only covers communications and events that took place during the course of the marriage, not actions prior to marriage.
WJTV reported that the couple have since divorced.
