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ASSOCIATED PRESS
Alexandria Duval entered Albany County Court on Friday. Duval, accused of killing her twin sister on Maui by driving their SUV off a cliff, is fighting her extradition from New York to face a murder charge.
ALBANY, N.Y. >> A woman accused of killing her twin sister by driving their SUV off a cliff in Hawaii traveled to upstate New York to grieve the loss of her “soul mate,” her lawyer said Friday after a brief court appearance.
Alexandria Duval appeared in court a week after police arrested her in Albany. Her lawyer expects that an extradition hearing will be held before Duval returns to Hawaii, where a grand jury indicted her on a second-degree murder charge last month.
Duval, cuffed and wearing a yellow prison jumpsuit, was quiet during a court appearance in which she declined to waive her right to an extradition hearing. But Public Defender Terence Kindlon told reporters outside the courtroom that she had not been trying to evade authorities and did not know there was a second indictment against her.
An initial indictment stemming from the fatal crash was dismissed by a judge earlier this year.
“She left Hawaii to come back to the states to grieve, not to escape from justice,” Kindlon said. “She is very distraught, very distraught. And I think that, if nothing else, she needs just to reach a greater state of peace with herself because this has been a terrible experience with her. Her sister was her soul mate.”
Authorities say Alexandria Duval was driving an SUV in May with her sister, Anastasia, in the passenger seat when the vehicle crashed into a rock wall and plunged about 200 feet. Authorities have described a hair-pulling fight over the steering wheel.
The Duval sisters were born Alison and Ann Dadow in the Utica, N.Y., area, about 80 miles west of Albany. Kindlon said Duval has family and friends in the Albany area.
The sisters operated popular yoga studios in Palm Beach County, Fla., from 2008 to 2014 before they changed their names. They moved to Hawaii in December from Utah.
Duval was remanded back to the county jail after her court appearance.
She is due back in court Dec. 16.
Her personal emotional distress, is similar to many mainland legal defenses (mitigating or extenuating circumstances are involved).
The “twinkie defense”, the junk food made me do it.
The murder defense logic, of someone who killed their parents, “I am an orphan”.
And her attorney wins the Statehood Award for the month of November. “She left Hawaii to come back to the states to grieve…”
Yeah, I caught that the other day when this was “breaking news.” Just wonderful.
I don’t get it. One sister wants to murder the other, so she drives off a cliff? Was the driver also trying to commit suicide?
She didn’t ‘lose her soul mate’ she killed her soul mate, know the difference.
My God, her lawyer is as dumb as she is with that statement.