JEFFERSONVILLE, Ind. (AP) — The murder trial of a southern Indiana man accused of killing his ex-girlfriend and eating parts of her body began with a prosecutor warning jurors that they’ll see photos of the 2014 crime scene “worse than anything you would see in a horror movie.”
Clark County Prosecutor Jeremy Mull said Friday during his opening remarks in Joseph Oberhansley’s trial that Tammy Jo Blanton, 46, “met a fate that’s very difficult to describe” at the hands of the Jeffersonville man, who is charged with murder, rape, abuse of a corpse and burglary.
Mull warned the jurors, who were drawn from Allen County in northeastern Indiana because of the intense media coverage the case has received in the south of the state, that the evidence they would see will include gruesome photos.
Defense attorney Bart Betteau asked jurors to be wary of “emotional evidence” that wasn’t relevant to the facts in Sept. 11, 2014, killing.
Witnesses who testified Friday — the sixth anniversary of Blanton’s death — included two officers who responded to her home that day and a 911 dispatcher who fielded Blanton’s call, in which she told the dispatcher that Oberhansley, now 39, was trying to break into her Jeffersonville home.
Sabrina Hall, a co-worker and friend of Blanton’s, testified that she called police after a man she believes was Oberhansley answered Blanton’s phone the day her friend died. She said time moved “super fast and super slow at the same time” as she waited for officers to confirm what she believed had happened.
The trial is set to resume Monday with a doctor who performed an autopsy on Blanton expected to testify.
If he’s convicted by the jury, Oberhansley will face a sentence of life in prison.
Oberhansley was set to stand trial in August 2019 with a jury drawn from central Indiana’s Hamilton County, but a mistrial was declared during the first day of testimony after a witness for the state spoke of things that attorneys had agreed would not be mentioned to the jury.
Regulators authorized AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine for use in adults throughout the European Union on Friday, amid criticism the bloc is not moving fast enough to vaccinate its population.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A former FBI lawyer was sentenced to probation for altering an email that the Justice Department relied on during its surveillance of an aide to President Donald Trump during the Russia investigation.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Democratic Gov. Tony Evers lashed out Friday at rival Republicans who tried to repeal his statewide mask mandate, saying killing the order would be a ridiculous move comparable to abolishing speed limits.
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — As some conservatives in South Carolina celebrated getting a bill that would ban almost all abortions in the state past a legislative barrier and likely becoming law, they said they are not finished trying to end all abortions.
A Moscow court on Friday put the brother and several allies of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny under house arrest for two months as authorities sought to stymie more protests over the jailing of the top Kremlin foe.