KINGSTON, Jamaica — With her hands raised to the sky and tears on her cheeks, Donna Lee Donaldson’s mother Sophia Lugg was full of praise Thursday for the guilty verdict handed down against Constable Noel Maitland for the murder of her daughter.

“To all my Jamaican people, to each and everyone all over this world, thank you very much [for] standing with me. The verdict has passed and victory belongs to us,” she said, speaking through tears.

Lugg was addressing journalists outside the Home Circuit Court shortly after the jury convicted Maitland on the counts of murder and preventing the lawful burial of a corpse in relation to July 12, 2022 disappearance of his 24-year-old girlfriend.

READ: Maitland guilty!

When asked how she felt witnessing Maitland crying after he learned his fate, Lugg told Observer Online: “I don’t know how to answer that one, tears are a language for even the murderers, God understands, he knows why he cries, he has been crying from day one, I don’t understand why, why Noel Maitland did this.”

Donna Lee was last seen at Chelsea Manor Apartments in St Andrew where Maitland lived. Her body has not been recovered.

“I may never know what happened to my daughter Donna Lee Donaldson, I may never get a bone but justice will serve, justice will serve and I will fight to the end, because this is not the end,” she vowed. “There is a higher God authority who is gonna deal with this in his own way and I wanna say thank you all to each and every one of you.”

Lugg also thanked the justice system, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) and the jury for playing their part in the outcome.

Meanwhile, it was a bittersweet moment for DPP Claudette Thompson.

“It is not what I expected in terms of feelings, because now I am feeling sad, it is almost a confirmation that Donna-Lee is really gone so it is not a moment for us to rejoice,” she told Observer Online, adding “It is acceptance that the jurors I think returned the correct verdict.”

(Video: Jason Cross)