In the days before her death, Tiffany Wilson tried to break up with the actress and Baltimore dirt bike rider Lakeyria Doughty, the “Wheelie Queen.”
Wilson, a 33-year-old Baltimore chef, sent text messages to Doughty asking for the keys back to her apartment, police said. Wilson repeatedly told Doughty to leave her alone.
Then on New Year’s Day came a frantic phone call to 911. Doughty told the operator that Wilson had stabbed herself with a kitchen knife.
But officers charged Doughty with murder, writing in court documents that the medical examiner determined Wilson could not have stabbed herself.
That determination led Baltimore District Court Judge Mark Scurti to order Doughty held without bail Monday. Her defense attorney had urged the judge to release the actress, saying she didn’t kill Wilson but tried to save her life by performing CPR and calling for help.
Attorney Andrea Jaskulsky said Wilson felt down on herself in the preceding days.
“My client’s position is I didn’t do anything wrong. That this was a self-inflicted wound. I tried to save her,” defense attorney Jaskulsky told the judge.
The 26-year-old Doughty is well known among Baltimore’s dirt bike riders and appeared in the HBO movie “Charm City Kings.” The film debuted at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and won acclaim for its authenticity. Her attorney said Doughty is supposed to star in a TV adaption of the film.
YouTube videos feature Doughty’s radio interviews and other film appearances. Nearly 60,000 fans follow her on Instagram. And a sports marketing company sells “Wheelie Queen” T-shirts and sweatshirts.
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Her manager declined Monday to comment. Doughty is scheduled for a preliminary hearing in February in Baltimore District Court.
The judge said he would consider a request in the coming days that she be released on home detention to await trial. Maryland’s chief judge has postponed all jury trials because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Doughty is regarded as a pioneer for breaking into Baltimore’s male dominated 12 O’Clock Boys dirt bike crew. In a 2014 profile in The Sun, Doughty said she wants to set a positive example for Baltimore youth. She graduated from Frederick Douglass High School in West Baltimore and held a steady job at a senior care facility before her career as an actress. In her early riding videos, she stops at the red lights.
“People underestimate people, and I feel as though they shouldn’t do that,” she told The Sun. “You should never let nobody tell you you can’t do something. I just want to get it out there: I’m a girl, and I’m doing everything you doing.”
Her attorney told the judge at Monday’s hearing that Doughty has visited city schools and talked to students. She’s volunteered to help teach girls to ride. The death of her girlfriend, the attorney said, left Doughty devastated.
Police found Wilson stabbed in her chest in the kitchen of her Sandtown-Winchester apartment. In charging documents, officer wrote that they noticed the furniture moved around and scuff marks on the walls — as if there had been a fight. They wrote that they found jewelry and hair that appeared to have been pulled out.
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Wilson had been stabbed once in the left side of her chest near her armpit. Officers found Doughty beside the wounded woman and “covered in blood,” they wrote. Wilson died at the scene, and the medical examiners came to investigate.
“The injury appeared inconsistent with a self-inflicted wound, contradicting Ms. Doughty’s statement to the first responding officers,” police wrote.
Officers searched Doughty’s cellphone and discovered text messages about their breakup.
“The text messages paint a very disturbing picture,” police wrote. “The victim was breaking up with Ms. Doughty and wanted her keys back. The victim repeated this comment over and over in the text messages for Ms. Doughty to leave her alone.”
Doughty told officers of other text messages that were not confrontational. Still, police wrote that they found a history of domestic violence between the two women.
Wilson’s death was Baltimore’s first homicide of 2021.
Baltimore Sun reporter Justin Fenton contributed to this article.