Missoula, Montana:
A Montana woman on trial for the death of her new husband, showed little emotion when she located his body in Glacier National Park days after she told authorities he had driven off with friends and disappeared, friends of the woman testified.
Jordan Graham is charged with first degree murder, second degree murder and making false statements to authorities, in relation to the death of her husband of only eight days, Cody Johnson, (25).
Federal prosecutors allege that Graham ( 22) blindfolded Johnson and then pushed him off of a cliff because she was having cold feet about being married.
But Graham denies these allegations and says that she and Johnson had argued and that he tried to grab her hand. She then pushed him in retaliation and he fell off the cliff. She says she lied about the circumstances of Johnson's death at first because she feared that nobody would believe her story.
"We were in the middle of an argument and he thought I was going to run away. Cody had grabbed me and I thought he was going to push me down," she said in her pretrial hearing in November, as quoted by People. "My first instinct was to get him off [of me]."
Many of Graham's friends, and even her sixteen-year-old brother have been called to testify. According to friend Hannah Sherrill, who testified on Tuesday, Graham said after finding Cody Johnson's body that now a funeral could be held and "the cops can be out of it."
Graham, her mother, brother and friends drove to the park twice in the days after Johnson went missing on July 7 2013. Graham climbed down a steep slope to a ledge below the roadway and she called out that she spotted the body in a ravine below the cliff.
"And then after that she didn't really show any emotion," friend Cecilia Lewellen recalled.
Graham's brother, Michael Rutledge, (16), testified earlier Tuesday that he was angry with Graham because she had lied again and again.
"She could have told us the truth," Rutledge testified, sobbing. "She told one lie, was asked to tell the truth, and she said it again. And she had to keep adding more lies to cover it up. And that's maybe why I was mad."
Graham cried quietly during her brother's testimony.
Graham's trial continues.
Sources:
No comments:
Post a Comment