Nearly three years after a Tatiana Jefferson
was shot and killed in her own home,
the murder trial of former Fort Worth
police officer Aaron Dean finally started
this morning after a lot of delays.
Investigative reporter Tanya Eiser has been
following this case every step of the way and
joins us now live to talk more about this.
And and Tanya, you know,
we say you followed this case
every step of the way.
This one has been extraordinary just
because of the length of time it has
taken us to get to this point.
We had half a day in the courtroom today.
Talk to us first about the initial
witness who was brought to the stand.
A tatianas young nephew.
He was eight years old at the
time and witnessed an awful night.
Yeah, he certainly did.
I mean, I just imagining what this.
Young man, this young child went through it.
Eight years old. He's now 11.
He's in the 6th grade.
And and and a lot of people were asking,
well why would the prosecution start
with him as their first witness.
And in talking to legal experts what
they tell me is that oftentimes in
a trial what you want to do is you
want to start with a family member.
A family member who's going to help you
connect to the victim and the victim,
in this case a Tatiana Jefferson.
And in some ways he's actually he also.
He also offers something else.
So it not only is he a family
member of a Tatyana Jefferson.
You know,
he talked about how they made hamburgers
that night and the things that were
going on and how she taught him how to
mow the yard and that kind of thing.
But he also offered perspective as
the star witness of this trial.
The Who, the the only witness,
except for police officers
who witnessed what happened.
Now,
one of the interesting things
that came out is that both the,
I think the prosecution and the defense
were actually a bit surprised by
his testimony when he was initially.
Interviewed after this incident
and in subsequent interviews,
he had always said that his aunt had had
that when she approached the window,
window had the gun raised and was
pointing it out the window today,
he said.
Pretty consistently that the that
the gun was actually down by his by
her side and that she never raised
the weapon and he even demonstrated,
demonstrated that to the courtroom.
It'll be interesting to see how
that plays out.
And because the original testimony
might have tended to favor the defense,
and I'm assuming they're going to
want to bring into into evidence his
videotape testimony when he talked
to the authorities in the beginning.
That is an interesting twist.
Early on in this trial.
We also had another one today.
It was an incident today between the judge.
And local attorney Lee Merritt,
who a lot of people know,
he is representing the Jefferson
family in a civil case.
I wanna play a little bit of it here
and then we'll talk to you about
it on the other side, Tanya, OK?
It's my understanding you've been next
door watching the trial as a witness.
You're not allowed to do
that if you want to come,
if you want to watch the trial,
you got to do it outside the courtroom.
Actually, I'm telling you
not to watch the trial.
Yeah. The judge was clearly not happy at all.
He, he made it very clear that that
Lee Merritt is a witness and that
he should not have been listening.
He was actually listening in into it
and on to the testimony in another room.
They have an auxiliary courtroom
where they have the trial playing.
And he actually admonished him,
basically telling him you're an
attorney and you know better than that.
So he made it very clear that he
should not be watching this trial.
And it will be interesting.
The defense was asked if they planned
to call Lee Merritt as a witness later,
and they said they don't know so.
Will be interesting to see if
that actually happens or not.
So we only had half a day in the
courtroom today because there was a
funeral that a lot of folks involved
with the trial had to get to.
Tonya, what do we expect to happen
when this picks up again tomorrow?
I think we're going to,
we're going to start with, you know,
building the building blocks of this case.
We're going to probably hear
from maybe the other officer who
was with Aaron Dean that night.
And then the officers who first responded,
I think they're going to walk us through it.
We could also hear from the,
the detective assigned to the case,
but I think they're going to just start.
Building the chronology of this case,
that was that's what I would
expect and we'll have to see.
Antonia, I know that you're going to
be here throughout streaming there,
the whole thing, WFA plus, as well as on
our website and on our YouTube channel.
And we'll keep checking back with you
too in the afternoons. Thanks, Tonya.