Jazmine Barnes capital murder trial heads to closing arguments
Jazmine Barnes Trial: Closing arguments began for capital murder suspect
7-year-old Jazmine Barnes was shot and killed as she sat in her mother’s car. Eric Black admitted and plead guilty to his role as the driver but named another man as the shooter. However, the defense is casting doubt on that testimony saying it was coerced.
HOUSTON - We could see a verdict come down in the capital murder trial of 7-year-old Jazmine Barnes soon. The state and defense rested their cases on Thursday evening.
During the third day of testimony, the defense worked to cast doubt into the testimony of the key witness and accessory to the crime, Eric Black.
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Barnes was shot and killed in December 2018 as her mother drove along Sam Houston Parkway, near Wallisville Road. The initial suspect description was a white man in a red pickup truck, Jazmines' two siblings also described the man in the truck as the shooter.
However, after activist Shaun King offered a $100,000 reward for information, detectives received a tip naming two Black men as the suspects. The two were identified as Eric Black, who admitted to being the driver and already plead guilty. He named 27-year-old Larry Woodruffe as the shooter and testified against him in this week's trial.
However, the defense cast doubt into that testimony, hinting that it was coerced. The defense also called into question why the man in the red pickup truck was never fully investigated or looked into.
The detective who investigated the case testified Thursday that video evidence showed the man in the red pick-up going in a different direction than Barnes' family, so he was ruled out.
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On Thursday, the prosecution also presented an expert witness who testified that both Black and Woodruffe's phones were near the scene of the crime at the time of the shooting; the defense attempted to stop that testimony, but the judge allowed it.
Closing arguments are scheduled to begin at 8:30 a.m. Friday.