The suspected murderer of Morgan Freeman’s step-granddaughter is alleging that the victim was involved in an inappropriate sexual relationship with the legendary actor, according to his lawyer.
Lamar Davenport has been accused of stabbing E’Dena Hines 25 times outside her Manhattan building in 2015. He is currently on trial for second-degree murder.
His lawyer is now claiming that Hines admitted to Davenport that she had secretly been sleeping with her step-grandfather for years, apparently confirming years-old rumors that the two had been intimate, according to the New York Daily News.
“E’Dena Hines disclosed to Lamar Davenport and others that her grandfather engaged in a sexually inappropriate relationship with her,” Davenport’s lawyer, Beth Unger, claimed in court Friday.
She also complained about having “grandpa feelings” in the last few months of her life, according to text messages revealed at the trial.
It is not clear why Davenport’s claim is being introduced in the trial.
The National Enquirer first published rumors of the alleged affair in 2009, with some gossip sites reporting that the relationship was serious enough for the two to consider marriage.
Though they are not related by blood, Freeman has known Hines, who was 33-years-old when she was killed, since she was a child. Freeman had adopted Hines’ biological mother, Deena Adair, during his first marriage to Jeanette Adair-Bradshaw. He helped raise Hines with his second wife, Myrna Colley-Lee.
Both Hines and Freeman, now 80, publicly denied any affair when the rumors first surfaced.
“The recent reports of any pending marriage or romantic relationship of me to anyone are defamatory fabrications from the tabloid media designed to sell papers,” Freeman said in a 2012 statement.
If convicted, Davenport is facing 25 years in prison.