Tyrone N. Butts
APE Reporter
Prosecution's case against former Tampa Marine proceeds
The double murder trial of a former Tampa Marine sergeant continued Thursday, with a detective telling the court what James Coleman did as he lived in the same apartment with his girlfriend's dead body for a week.
Coleman, who was stationed at MacDill Air Force Base, is accused of killing 19-year-old Jessica Hine and her 10-week-old baby, Devonte Coleman, in December of 2002. He is facing the dea
h penalty.
More than two dozen prosecution witnesses have testified so far.
In court Thursday, a former coworker of Coleman's told the jury Coleman came to work after the crime and sa
id
hey wouldn't have to worry about Hine calling MacDill Air Force Base anymore. That was before anyone knew
Hine was dead.
Tampa Police Detective Richard Cochran testified he talked to Coleman the day of his confession and that he admitted Hine's body stayed in the apartment about a week and that he'd sit near her and watch TV.
"I had asked him, 'Was this just with the body sitting right there on the couch beside you,'" said Cochran. "And he said, 'Yes, that's where the body was.'"
According to prosecutors, Coleman said he finally drove Hine's body out to Volusia County, where he dumped it.
Cochran also testified that he asked Coleman why he put the baby's body in a freezer, and he responded that h
e didn't want to see Devonte in the apartment by himself.
The defense is expected to begin its case next week.
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You've got to wonder if this n-gger had s
ex with th
e corpse or perhaps even nibbled on it.
'Shattered dreams,' then two are slain
nTAMPA - They met on the Internet and shared Apartment 307 just seven months. The relationship between Marine Sgt. James Coleman and Jessica Hine ended in December 2002, prosecutors say, with his hands around her neck.
Tampa police found the body of Hine's infant stuffed inside a cardboard box, inside a freezer at the apartment. His eyes were open.
The same day - Dec. 26, 2002 - Tampa police picked up Coleman at his job at Central Command at MacDill Air Force Base.
In her opening statement to jurors Wednesday, Assistant Public Defender Lisa Campbell did not
dispute that Coleman played a role in the deaths. She argued rather that first-degree murder, which requires premeditation, was the wrong charge for what Coleman did.
"James Coleman
did not want Jessi
ca Hine or Devonte Coleman to die," though he accepted his responsibility for his actions, she told jurors at Coleman's murder trial.
She said Coleman was a lonely man searching for a soulmate when he found Hine, who w
as also deeply lonely. "It was a tumultuous relationship," the defense attorney said. "Life in Apartment 307 wasn't perfect."
Still, even when he found out the child she was carrying was not his own, Campbell said, it did not diminish his desire to build a family.
"This is a case about shattered dreams and hopelessness," the defense attorney said. "She was the only person who ever loved James Coleman."
The defense attorney did not give an account of how Hi
ne and her baby died, but said Coleman had been overcome by stress. "There really isn't any explanation for why some things happen that appear to be beyond all reason," she said.</
span>
In his openin
g remarks, prosecutor Jalal Harb said Coleman told Tampa detectives how a struggle with his 19-year-old girlfriend led to Coleman's choking her until her hands went limp.
Coleman was afraid that Hine would call 911 and jeopardize his career as a Marine, Harb said. "The defendant did not want to be arreste
d for domestic violence," he said.
To hide the odor of her decomposing body, the prosecutor said, Coleman turned down the temperature in the apartment they shared at 4800 West Shore Blvd., then dumped her body in the Ormond Beach woods.
Knowing it would look strange to be found alone with her 10-week-old baby, Devonte, the prosecutor said, Coleman suffocated the baby in a bedsheet and hid the body in the freezer.
Coleman, 25, faces a
possible death penalty if convicted of first-degree murder for the deaths of Hine and her baby, who was given Coleman's name although he was not the biological father.
Three months
before Hine's death, Coleman
was charged with committing aggravated battery on her while she was eight months pregnant. Hine called prosecutors to ask that the charge be dropped, but later agreed to press a charge of misdemeanor battery.
The trial continues today before Hillsborough Circuit Judge J. Rogers Padgett.
Sitting on the 12-person jury, despite the pr
osecution's attempt to strike her, is Catherine Norton. Eight years ago, Judge Padgett sentenced her brother to death for murder, though the sentence was later reduced to a 30-year term for manslaughter.
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The exp
lanation is TNB, you dumbass!
T.N.B.
