Sentencing in DC Lawyer Hotel Murder Case: Report

PHOTO: Jamyra Gallmon, Feb. 9, from security video at The Donovan the night before DC lawyer was found stabbed in a room at the hotel. Image courtesy of Metropolitan DC Police Department; David Messerschmitt photo from LinkedIn

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Jamyra Gallmon, 21, was sentenced to 24 years in prison Friday morning for the Feb. 9 murder of DC lawyer David Messerschmitt at the Donovan Hotel, according to a report by WUSA-9.

The mysterious case involved Messerschmitt, 30, who was at the DC hotel after answering an ad to meet a man there for sex, according to several reports.

Gallmon, 21, was charged with robbery and fatally stabbing Messerschmitt at the hotel. She was caught on surveillance cameras at the hotel and police released the photos and videos to the media. She pleaded guilty in May to a second-degree murder charge.

Gallmon answered Messerschmitt’s online ad, pretending to be a man; she brought a knife and zip ties to the hotel, police said. Messerschmitt was married and an associate at the DLA Piper law firm in DC.

She went to a DC hotel with the intent to rob him, but ended up stabbing him when she said she suffered from a flashback to an earlier assault incident, she told authorities.

After Messerschmitt failed to return home to his wife, Kim Voung, she reported him missing; he was found fatally stabbed the next morning around 11 a.m. at the hotel, according to police.

Gallmon, of Good Hope Road in Southeast DC, was arrested April 1 after the photos and video were widely circulated and after Messerschmitt’s widow made a public plea for help in the case.

Her girlfriend, Dominique Johnson, was an accomplice but was not in the hotel room and was sentenced to a year in jail with six months suspended.