Jury selection began Tuesday in the trial of the so-called "black madam," accused of giving an illegal buttocks injection that led to a woman's death.
Prosecutors say one woman died and another came close to dying after Padge-Victoria Windslowe illegally injected silicone into their rear-ends during voluntary "pumping parties." Windslowe is charged with murder, possession of an instrument with crime and other related offenses. She pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Windslowe, 44, was arrested in early 2012 when police raided a home on East Pastorius Street in the Germantown section of Philadelphia before an alleged "pumping party" was about to begin.
She allegedly played a role in the fatal butt-enhancement procedure performed on 20-year-old British student Claudia Aderotimi at the Hampton Inn near Philadelphia International Airport in Feb. 2011.
Police say Aderotimi flew from London to Philadelphia after seeing Windslowe's internet posting advertising body enhancement. Aderotimi did not know that Windslowe was an unlicensed and untrained layperson who was using local hotels, according to investigators.
Police say Aderotimi was injected in her buttocks with a needle filled with silicone. After the injection, Aderotimi experienced chest pains as the silicone traveled through her system and into her blood stream and organs, according to investigators.
Police say Aderotimi's friends, who were in the hotel during the procedure, alerted Windslowe about the medical emergency. Windslowe allegedly told Aderotimi and her friends that she should drink more fluids and to call an ambulance if she needed to. Police say Windslowe then ran off instead of calling police or checking to see if Aderotimi was okay.
Aderotimi died a short time later at a Delaware County Hospital from a pulmonary embolism caused by complications from the butt injection, according to the Medical Examiner. A pulmonary embolism is a blockage of the lung's main artery or one of its branches by a substance that has traveled from elsewhere in the body through the bloodstream.
One of Aderotimi's friends, Theresa Gyamfi, said she traveled with her friend to the U.S. and had also received a similar injection in November 2010 from the same woman.
Gyamfi identified Windslowe as the woman that injected both of them.
