Diné woman killed in Kentucky, suspect arrested

By Krista Allen
Special to the Times

CAMERON, Ariz.

A young Diné woman was stabbed and killed after she was lured into a man’s hotel room in Florence, Kentucky. The man was arrested at a movie theater shortly afterwards.

Jesse A. James, 32, of Burlington, Kentucky, was arrested at Rave Cinemas inside Florence Mall after movie-theater employees called police because a man at the cinema was acting paranoid and strangely.

James pleaded not guilty on Monday and his bail was set at $1 million.

The man gave police officers two fake names before they determined that it was James and then arrested him for false identifying information and identity theft.

Under police questioning at the city police department, James admitted to stabbing and killing 26-year-old Amanda Dakota Webster, a Diné woman from Na’ni’á Hasání, in his Home2 Suites hotel room. James is being charged with murder and tampering with physical evidence, according to Florence police.

Police responded to Home2 Suites, an extended stay hotel at 7570 Woodspoint Drive in Florence, at 11:51 a.m. on Saturday after a housekeeping worker found an unresponsive female inside James’s room. Officers found a deceased person, later identified as Webster.

Florence police have a hotel surveillance video of James luring Webster into his room. Webster was stabbed multiple times, according to an autopsy report.

A GoFundMe campaign (gofundme.com/8pqkbu-funeral-transportation) was set up to help transfer Webster’s body from Kentucky to the Navajo Nation. A total of $6,925 had been raised of a $5,000 goal as of Monday at 10 a.m.

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