‘Michelangelo of buttock jabs’ is found guilty of Briton’s murder

Padge-Victoria Windslowe’s colourful testimony during her Philadelphia trial included claims that she was “the Michelangelo of buttocks injections”.

Yet Windslowe had no medical training, other than tips she said she picked up from overseas doctors who performed her sex change operation and a physician-client of her escort service who became her lover.

“I was the best, and I don’t mean that to be cocky,” Windslowe testified, explaining why celebrities would have sought her out over a licensed plastic surgeon.

Windslowe, 45, described herself as a serial entrepreneur who once ran a transgender escort service and a Gothic hip-hop performer who called herself “the Black Madam”.

Authorities argued that she fled in 2011 after a botched injection killed Claudia Aderotimi, a 20-year-old London break-dancer and college student.

The trial was halted for several days last week while Windslowe was taken to hospital after reporting that she had chest pains. She has been in prison since 2012, when the 18-month investigation led to a coroner’s homicide ruling and later an arrest warrant.

The jury retired on Friday. They were choosing between third-degree murder, which is not premeditated but involves malice, and involuntary manslaughter, which involves reckless disregard for a person’s life.

Windslowe was also convicted of aggravated assault for injuries to a Philadelphia woman who became seriously ill after the injections. And the jury found her guilty of two weapons counts – the weapon in question being the industrial-grade silicone.

She faces 20 to 40 years in prison on the murder conviction alone.

Miss Aderotimi’s family in England chose not to attend the trial. The long-time friend who accompanied her to Philadelphia to celebrate her birthday also declined to make the trip. The friend’s 2012 testimony, read aloud in court, described the meeting as “a touch-up” after their prior visit to the woman they knew as “Lillian”.

The evidence showed that Windslowe travelled to hotel rooms and “pumping parties” with her tools of the trade stuffed into a shiny pink purse: a water bottle filled with silicone, a red plastic cup, needles and syringes, and Krazy Glue to close the injection sites.

Windslowe lowered her head in closing arguments on Friday as a prosecutor described Miss Aderotimi as “a regular girl” who had asked if the injections could interfere with her ability to have children. When Miss Aderotimi began having chest pains afterward, Windslowe “kept up the ruse” of being a physician’s assistant, Assistant District Attorney Bridget Kirn said.

“She put her hand on this young lady’s chest as if she were doing an exam,” Ms Kirn said. “But there was no exam.”

Defence lawyer David Rudenstein said the potential dangers were not clear to his client because she only knew of satisfied customers.

“Clearly with all the information from this case, we know it shouldn’t be done, it’s too risky,” Mr Rudenstein said. “We know that now. But we didn’t know that then.”