WILMINGTON, Del. - Ex-convict James Cooke Jr. was convicted this morning in the rape and strangulation of Lindsey Bonistall, a college student from White Plains.

The jury of eight men and four women found Cooke guilty of first-degree murder and other felonies related to the Bonistall slaying and two other home invasions in Newark, Del., in the spring of 2005.

Jurors rejected defense claims that Cooke was mentally ill.

Bonistall, 20, was a sophomore at the University of Delaware when Cooke broke into her off-campus apartment and killed her early on May 1, 2005. She was a 2003 graduate of Good Counsel Academy in White Plains.

Cooke, 36, now faces a penalty phase at which jurors will decide whether to recommend the death penalty.

http://www.nynews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070308/UPDATE/703080430

A combative James Cooke Jr. told jurors yesterday that he'd had consensual sex with White Plains college student Lindsey Bonistall but did not kill her, and insisted he was "railroaded" by police, prosecutors, the judge and even his own lawyers.

Cooke ended days of speculation by opting to testify at his capital murder trial in Wilmington, Del., insisting he was not mentally ill as his lawyers contend, complaining that evidence had been withheld from the jury and sparring repeatedly with the judge and lead prosecutor.

The defendant maintained his innocence, suggesting he had been set up because he had a criminal record and was a black man who had sex with a white college student.

"I ain't never (killed her). I don't know what happened to this young woman," he said of Bonistall, a University of Delaware sophomore. "I knew her, but I had no intention of killing nobody. ... I did crimes. ... But I ain't never killed anyone in my life."

http://www.nynews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070223/NEWS02/702230384