FT. LAUDERDALE – Not Guilty was the verdict Wednesday afternoon in a Broward County courtroom where Michael David Jones faced a domestic violence battery charge. Jones is the accused murderer of Sebastian nurse and Vero Beach resident Diana Duve, who was killed in 2014.
A jury of four men and two women found Jones not guilty of domestic battery by manual strangulation in Judge Lisa Porter’s Broward County courtroom following the trial that started Tuesday.
Three witnesses were called, including defendant Jones who testified in his own defense.
The accuser, Rachel Lounsbery, had reported to authorities that in February 2013 Jones choked her for about a minute and threatened her.
According to Jones’s testimony, Lounsbery was choked during a “catfight” between her and another woman, known only as Katie, whom Jones had brought to his condominium for a “random hook up.”
Duve’s parents were in the courtroom for Wednesday’s verdict.
Jones remains in custody on a violation of probation charge from June 2014 when he was found by the Vero Beach Police in a Hampton Inn in Fort Pierce while Jones was under court order to not leave Indian River County.
