Sophia Lugg emerged from the Supreme Court in downtown Kingston on Thursday, her arms outstretched, fists clenched, tears flowing into her black face mask and declared: “Victory, victory. God is good!”

Lugg’s emotional reaction capped almost four years of struggling with the pain of living with the thought that her 24-year-old daughter, Donna-Lee Donaldson, who has been missing since July 2022, is presumed dead.

The trigger for her reaction was the guilty verdict handed down by the jury against Constable Noel Maitland, the man who dated her daughter and who was deemed responsible for her disappearance and death.

The jury of three women and four men spent nearly four hours deliberating after the case was handed to them by trial judge Justice Leighton Pusey on Thursday. When they returned, the forewoman was asked if they had arrived at a unanimous decision. She answered “Yes.”

Maitland, the jury found, was guilty of murder and preventing the lawful burial of a corpse.

The mother’s tears came as dark clouds hovered outside the court, eventually dumping heavy rain in sections of Kingston and St Andrew.

“God is good. Victory!” Lugg said before thanking everyone who supported her and her family from day one and all who participated in the court process.

“To all my Jamaican people, each and everyone all over this world, thank you very much for standing with me in unity. The verdict was passed and victory belongs to us. I may never know what happened to my daughter Donna-Lee Donaldson. I may never get a bone, but justice was served,” Lugg added while arguing that despite Maitland being found guilty by the justice system, it is inevitable that he will answer to God.

“I will fight to the end. This is not the end. There is a God, a higher authority, who is going to deal with this in His own way and I want to say thank you all, to each and every one of you. We proclaim victory today, thank you all. God is good. Thanks to the justice system, thanks to the jurors. Thanks to Judge Leighton Pusey, and thanks to the team of the [Office of the] Director of Public Prosecutions. A big thanks to you all. God is good,” she said, adding that she still needs closure as she does not know what exactly happened to her daughter, who was a popular social media influencer, a call centre employee, and an entrepreneur.

The Jamaica Observer asked Lugg how she felt seeing Maitland cry after the eight-month-long trial.

“I don’t know how to answer that one. Tears is a language for even the murderers. God understands. He knows why he cried. I don’t understand why Noel Maitland did this, but God knows. I know one day, one day Noel, even 100 years behind bars, you will tell me what happened to my child,” Lugg said.

“I had no doubt [he would be found guilty] because I firmly believe in God and I know God was going to give me justice. I went through this without doubts. I knew today would have been a guilty verdict,” Lugg said as she raised her hands to the heavens.

Donaldson was last seen at the Chelsea Manor apartment in St Andrew where Maitland lived.

Lugg, who was a witness in the case, had told the court that after Donaldson celebrated her birthday on July 10, 2022 she came home and slept into the following day when Maitland picked her up from home in St Andrew.

Maitland, who gave an unsworn statement from the prisoner’s dock, told the jury that he took Donaldson to his apartment where they continued to celebrate her birthday. He said that an argument developed between both of them after he received a call from the mother of his child. He said Donaldson was upset that he had been maintaining an intimate relationship with his child’s mother.

He claimed she was also upset about a photograph of his child’s mother that was inside his apartment. He told the court that Donaldson kept on pressing the issue until he went to bed. The following day, according him, she left and he did not know where she went.

During the trial the court heard that Maitland took a three-seater couch to a car wash to have it power-washed. An attendant at the car wash, who testified from a remote location via a secure video link, said that she was the one who washed the couch and claimed that she saw “blood like rice grain” coming from the furniture while she was washing it. She told the court that the settee had a raw scent and that she saw flies following it.

A neighbour of Maitland testified that after Donaldson went missing the policeman came to his apartment requesting to view camera footage. Maitland went as far as to ask the neighbour to delete the footage.

Prosecutors used a host of circumstantial evidence to convict Maitland, including Donaldson’s blood that was found on curtains, shoes, a cushion cover, and a mat at the constable’s apartment.

During his unsworn statement, Maitland claimed that the blood got there because Donaldson experienced a miscarriage while at the apartment.

Maitland is scheduled to be sentenced on March 13, 2026.

In this video grab Sophia Lugg speaks with journalists after leaving the Supreme Court in downtown Kingston on Thursday after a jury found Constable Noel Maitland guilty of the murder of her daughter Donna-Lee Donaldson. (Video: Jason Cross)