Ashley Elkins case: Opening statements at murder trial (Full)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: what happens to trash after it's picked up well it ends up in a massive landfill and on january 13th 2025 at 8 a.m roseville police officers along with multiple other police agencies gathered at pine tree acres landfill in lenox township they broke into teams armed with drones cadaver dogs other police canines and spent the next six days in blistering cold mid-january weather from 8 a.m until 5 p.m every day dressed in hazmat suits masks combing through garbage that spanned acres they had bulldozers pushing layers of garbage with officers walking alongside them looking when the bulldozer was done pushing that layer the officers began digging sifting through garbage layer after layer pile after pile bag after bag day after day these officers worked tirelessly looking for ashley elkins and she was never found so why were officers digging through piles acres of other people's garbage for days on end in the middle of january looking for ashley elkins because on january 2nd 2025 ashley parked her car outside of deandre booker's apartment walked inside and was never seen again so what happened to ashley ashley elkins ashley was a mom of two young boys she loved them she was a sister a daughter cousin a friend she was happy she was social she spent time with her kids she spent time with her family she did hair outside of her home out of her home she would not just up and abandon her kids abandon her life and disappear so what happened to ashley elkins deandre booker killed her put her body into garbage bags dumped her in a dumpster and ran away so how do we know that ashley and the defendant had dated for about a year they broke up in about august or september of 2024 but the defendant was not going to accept that he was obsessive he would not let ashley go so after being rejected by ashley in the weeks leading up to january 2nd 2025 the defendant started doing some research looking some things up online doing some googling he wanted to know how to get his ex back what does it mean when someone just thumbs up an apology text or ignores an apology text the searches went on and on day and night he could not accept that ashley did not want to be with him anymore and then he switched gears and his searches turned to guns and silencers for guns and where to buy them shooting a gun through a pillow telling god i want to kill someone murder out of rage x and then on january 2nd 2025 after ashley elkins walked into a defendant's apartment the defendant then became curious about iphones and tracking their location when the phone is turned off how to disappear how big is a 30 gallon trash bag he starts looking up routes to other states stuff about police investigations deleting your search history can cops trace your phone is blood traceable how to get a new identity what happens to trash after it's picked up and the reason he was so curious about all of those things is because on january 2nd 2025 when ashley walked into defendant's apartment deandre booker killed her and after he killed her he needed to get rid of the evidence so he called a family member of his pain barksdale to help him move ashley's car which was still parked right outside of his apartment the hampton court apartments that's where deandre booker lived back in january 2025. he didn't tell pain the real reason he needed the car moved so she helped him after moving the car they ran some errands together and ultimately ended up back at defendant's apartment that's when defendant started acting a little strange especially when pain asked to use his bathroom she wasn't sure why he was acting strange there was nothing unusual about his bathroom a little dirty some stuff on the counter blue shower curtain pulled across the tub completely covering the tub no reason for defendant to be acting weird about her asking to use the bathroom pacing around the apartment so pain stays a little while at defendant's apartment after she leaves defendant gets to work now there's three apartment complexes that are near each other this is hampton court apartments this is where defendant live each apartment complex that we're going to talk about has its own set of dumpsters this right next to hands and core apartments is colonial village apartments this is the third apartment complex uh the pinehurst apartments so at around 3 p.m on january 2nd 2025 defendant wearing a dark winter coat black hat gray or blue kind of pants black shoes takes a big tv box out to the dumpster right outside of his apartment the hampton court apartments and then at 11 15 p.m defendant again leaves he goes to the shopping center right outside of his apartment and retrieves a shopping cart brings it back to his apartment complex and this time he's actually changed his clothes he still has on that dark jacket but the dark hat but he's got these dark colored ripped jeans and he shoots the dark color they seem to have a purplish tint to him white soles almost maybe a little reflective in the light defendant goes back out again just before 2 a.m on january 3rd 2025 wearing those same white sold shoes carrying a black garbage bag to a different dumpster than he went to before and then around 4 a.m he comes out again dark winter coat dark rib jeans white sole purple shoes light colored gloves dark winter hat carrying another black garbage bag but this time he goes to the dumpster next door behind colonial village apartments then at approximately 4 35 a.m on january 3rd 2025 defendant takes his final trip he gets that shopping cart that he went and got at 11 15 p.m and he pushes that shopping cart from his apartment all the way to the dumpster in pinehurst apartments two complexes away he spends some time at that dumpster maybe about five minutes or so seeming to struggle with the weight of the bag he is struggling to put garbage bags containing ashley elkins body into a dumpster he's finally able to dump it and then he heads on over to a nearby street glendale street where he hops in an uber and he runs away to flint by this time ashley's family is concerned that something's wrong they make a report but ashley has shared her location on her phone with her family and the last place that ashley's phone was located was defendant's apartment so they go there themselves they're looking for ashley in and around the apartment the complex they can't find her she's not answering her calls and this is not like her she stopped sharing her location with her family this is not like ashley she was so close with her mom and her sisters they talked all the time she would always call them back she would never let them worry like this so while they're at defendant's apartment looking for ashley lashawn ross finds a phone in their desperate search for anything that will help them find ashley they look in the phone and they find a doordash order order at 11 46 p.m on january 2nd 2025. three items one box of hefty strong 30 gallon large drawstring trash bags 28 pound one 43 ounce bottle of clorox disinfecting bleach and one package of essential everyday latex gloves delivered to defendant's apartment that night all of this is reported to warren police because that's where ashley lived at the time and so on the evening of january 3rd 2025 warren police and roseville police go to defendant's apartment but they don't find ashley so then on january 4th 2025 roseville police officers the day shift go back to defendants apartment at defendant's request because he sent them there he said hey i keep saying on social media people are breaking into my apartment can you go check on that for me roseville police they don't find ashley they don't find defendant but they do see what they believe to be blood in the bathroom bleach in the bathroom yellow rubber gloves on the couch and a gun under the couch they back out immediately they get a search warrant and then they do a thorough search of the apartment they find blood drops in various areas throughout the bathroom empty bottles of bleach the bathroom is almost completely empty all there is left towel over the window loof on the shower bottle of shampoo bottle of bleach they also find that the tub drain cover is pulled off and sitting inside the tub when they eventually go into that drain they find an earring clump of hair and a fired bullet the bullet is what's called a 38 millimeter or 38 caliber nine millimeter fired frangible bullet this will be explained to you so on january 4th 2025 officers searched the whole apartment they don't find ashley they don't find the defendant but they do find a box of hefty strong 30 gallon large drawstring trash bags 28 count under the kitchen sink near some pink or lavender colored garbage bags zip ties and some two and a half pound weights they find that the bathroom is empty but the rest of the apartment is fairly lived in there's men's clothing in the closet men's shoes in the closet dishes in the sink food in the fridge there's some bedding on the bed there's a tv in the bedroom there are couches with pillows there are rugs so what else do the police do to find out what happened surveillance videos officers are able to find video of ashley arriving they scour hours and hours all available video in the area for any trace of ashley after that they are able to track defendants movements as he goes back and forth throughout the night to the various dumpsters depositing different colored trash bags in different dumpsters but they are never able to find anything showing that ashley left that apartment and then they find the video of defendant final trip to the far away dumpster where he's pushing the shopping cart when they look in that dumpster they find blood michigan state police forensic lab is called out to assist they are able to test the blood found in the dumpster and they find it is approximately 37 septillion times more likely that it is ashley's dna than anybody else's and when they test the dna on the swab from inside the defendant's bathtub drain they find it is approximately 15 octillion times more likely that it is ashley's dna than anybody else's they also find that defendant's dna is excluded as a contributor to the swab that came out of his bathtub drain these are big numbers i know they will be explained to you michigan state police forensic team also does the special test that they have for what's called latent blood in the bathroom that would be blood that's cleaned up it's not visible to the naked eye they photograph every area in that bathroom where they find the latent blood it touches almost every surface of that bathroom it is on the tub on the shower walls the floor the toilet the walls the sink everywhere now while this investigation is ongoing the defendant is hiding away up in flint but police know where he is they have a few he defendant has a few phone conversations with sergeant lesbron's he is the officer in charge of investigating ashley's disappearance and murder and during those conversations sergeant lesbron's asked defendant questions about ashley trying to get details about what happened where is she to find out what happened to her and defendants answers are interesting because what defendant says to sergeant lesbron's does not match up with what they're finding at the apartment with what the videos are showing so after the videos are watched the blood is found in the dumpster michigan state police does their latent blood tests and the rest of their investigation officers give search warrant and they head up to rainbow lane in flint they find defendant there and they also find this clothing dark colored jacket dark colored ripped jeans dark shoes with purple and white soles they take these items they send them to the michigan state police lab for further testing and they find ashley's dna on these clothing they also find defendants phone on him when he's in flint which they ultimately take put on evidence and they go through it they pay particular attention to his internet searches there are a lot his searches go from ignoring people into submission how to make a woman love you again gun silencer nine millimeter how to disappear completely murder out of rage x shoot gun through pillow can you track location when phone is off phone dead ping last location how big is a 30 gallon trash bag delete search history charged with murder because someone came to your house but didn't leave can cops trace phone is blood always traceable what happens to trash after it's picked up what happened to ashley elkins well defendant is charged with first degree premeditated murder tampering with evidence dead bodies disinterment i think we're going to say that wrong this whole trial and mutilation concealing the death of an individual and lying to a police officer in a criminal investigation so let's go through those the judge is going to give you these you don't have to memorize them but we're going to talk about them because as we've been talking about this whole time miss hang about and i have the burden of proof but what we have to prove are these elements nothing more nothing less first degree premeditated murder the defendant calls the death of ashley elkins that is ashley elkins died by any means that indicate a willful deliberate and premeditated killing second the defendant intended to kill ashley elkins third his intent to kill was premeditated that is thought out beforehand fourth the killing was deliberate which means the defendant considered the pros and cons of killing and thought about and chose his actions before he did there must have been a real and substantial reflection for long enough to give a reasonable person a chance to think twice about the intent to kill the law does not say how much time is needed it's for you to decide if enough time is passed under their circumstances the case of killing cannot be a result of a sudden impulse without thought or reflection these are the elements we have to prove for first degree premeditated murder nothing more nothing less this is another jury instruction you're going to get from the judge the judge will read it to you and give you a copy as well but i just wanted to highlight it now because we're talking about what was the defendant's intent you must think about all the evidence in deciding what the defendant's state of mind was at the time of the alleged killing it may be inferred from the kind of weapon used the type of wounds inflicted the acts and words of the defendant and any other circumstances surrounding the alleged killing you may infer that the defendant intended to kill if he used a dangerous weapon in a way that was likely to cause death likewise may infer that the defendant intended the usual results that follow from the use of a dangerous weapon dangerous weapon is any instrument used in a way that is likely to cause serious physical injury or death premeditation and deliberation may be inferred from any actions of the defendant which show planning or any other circumstances surrounding the killing the prosecutor need not prove motive for the killing but you may consider evidence of motive in deciding if there was premeditation and deliberation motive by itself does not prove premeditation deliberation these are just some things to think about when you're listening to the evidence and you're making your decision count number two removing destroying tampering with evidence there is some evidence to be offered in a present or future official proceeding we have a definition for official proceeding it's been read to you it'll be read to you again i'm not going to do it right now second the defendant removed altered concealed destroyed or otherwise tampered with that evidence third when he did so he did so on purpose not by accident and that the evidence that was removed altered concealed destroyed or otherwise tampered with was used or intended to be used in a criminal proceeding where first three premeditated murder was charged count three the defendant did cause permanent damage to a portion of a dead body to face a portion of a dead body by marring its appearance or remove or carry away from the hole a portion of the dead body dead body and did not have legal authorization to do so count four concealing the death of an individual ashley elkins died on or before january 2nd 2025 defendant discovered ashley elkins body third the defendant knew or reasonably should have known that ashley elkins was dead upon discovering her body fourth the defendant failed to inform a law enforcement agency funeral home 9-1-1 operator that he discovered the body and fifth that the defendant failed to report his discovery of the body to conceal the fact that ashley had died or to conceal the cause of ashley elkins death and finally count five lying to a peace officer sergeant matthew lesbrons was a police officer peace officer conducting an investigation it was a homicide count three or excuse me third this that sergeant matthew lesbrons informed the defendant he was conducting a criminal investigation fourth defendant provided false information regarding that investigation to the police officer in a statement the defendant knew was false or misleading fifth the defendant acted knowingly and willfully that is the defendant provided false information voluntarily and intentionally with the intent to deceive not because of some mistake or other innocent reason sixth the allegedly false information provided was involved in material fact a material fact is information a reasonable person would use to decide whether or not to do something a fact is material if it has the capacity or natural tendency to influence an officer's decision how to proceed with an investigation it is not a defense to this charge that the officer was able to obtain the information from another source or by different means if you determine the unreasonable doubt that the defendant intended to provide false information i know it's a lot again you're going to be read those instructions by the judge and you will get them so you can when you're deliberating you can go through them line by line and compare them to the evidence that you're going to hear and see one last housekeeping matter we have 26 witnesses that we will be presenting throughout the trial we have therefore 26 schedules to accommodate sometimes we may have to take some of our witnesses out of order and we have chosen this jury because you are all reasonable and intelligent people and i think that the hope is that if we do have to take them out of order it will still make sense to you you will still be able to follow and put all the evidence together in the end i just wanted to warn you that sometimes we have to put people in a different order we have a lot to work with here so what happened to ashley elkins after you hear all the testimony see all the exhibits you will be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that deandre booker killed ashley elkins on january 2nd 2025 cleaned up the scene to get rid of any evidence put her body in garbage bags put her in a dumpster never to be seen again and then lied to the police about it and at that point we will ask you to find defendant guilty in charge [00:26:00] Speaker 2: thank you good morning ladies and gentlemen once again my name is robbie lang and i have the honor and pleasure of representing mr deandre booker in this uh case now as you know we're trying an obvious you know serious incident we're trying to decide or you're going to have to decide whether or not mr booker is guilty of first degree murder the most serious crime there is in the legal system and this will be truthfully i mean not maybe personally but the most important decision you're going to make in your life Super important for you to keep in mind at the beginning and throughout this trial a few things. Before someone in our society is branded as a criminal, our founding fathers set up a system of justice consisting of five super important rights that a defendant has. One, defendant is to be presumed innocent and that carries along the entire trial. Second, the right to remain silent versus your accusers. Again, all of this is written into the Constitution and that silence cannot be used against him. Third, places the entire burden of proving the crime upon the government represented by the prosecutors here. The defendant has to prove nothing. We do not have to prove his innocence. They have to prove his guilt. And that burden is proving that guilt, fourth thing, beyond a reasonable doubt. The fifth of these rights is that guilt or innocence is decided in a trial by a jury of one's peers, fellow citizens. It's not the police who get to decide what happened. It's not the prosecutor who gets to decide what happens. It's not even the judges that get to decide it's you. And all of us must be foremost in your minds before anyone is branded a criminal, let alone a murderer. I want to stress to you, this standard of proof. We talked about it a lot in the past two days of beyond a reasonable doubt, and it is not a balancing act. It is not a tip of the scales of justice. It is as close to certainty as possible. In my opinion, the simplest way to describe what reasonable doubt is, the thought process or the feeling of that, is simply a doubt with a reason attached to it. And if you can say to yourself, at the conclusion of this case, two things, you can answer two questions. One, Mr. Booker is not guilty because, and fill in the blank. If you can fill in that blank with a reason, he's not guilty. Or, Mr. Booker might be guilty but blank and fill that in with a reason, that is reasonable doubt. And the law requires you, mandates you, to make a verdict, if you have that reasonable doubt, of not guilty. And because we're in a court of law, your decision cannot be based on, it has to be based on reason, facts, evidence, the law the judge is going to give to you. It can't be based on emotion, can't be based on pity, it can't be based on theory, conjecture, speculation, or assumptions. In other words, you can't guess about what happened to Ashley Elkins. You have to be sure about, and convince beyond a reasonable doubt, as to what happened to Ashley Elkins. I am asking you to find Mr. Booker not guilty of the crime of first degree murder, because I truly believe there simply is no actual physical proof, beyond a reasonable doubt, either through witnesses, facts, all the evidence you're going to hear, that A, is Ashley even dead. Even if we assume that she is dead, there is no proof beyond a reasonable doubt regarding the manner or cause of her death. The prosecutor is not going to be able to do that. How did her death occur? What was it caused by? Was she shot with a gun? Was she stabbed with a knife? Was she beaten? Was she hit over the head with a baseball bat? Was she strangled? Or was it an accident? Or was it an accident? We talked about relationships. Did somebody get into an argument? Was there a physicality involved? Did somebody fall, hit their head on a tile, a bathtub, a toilet? I don't know. And I'm going to tell you what, and we can forget the suspense, because there will be absolutely no answers to these questions forthcoming in this trial. And I'll tell you why not. There's just too many unanswered questions. There's too many gaping holes in the prosecutor's evidence, their facts, their investigation. All they have is speculation, a theory, and an assumption. When I talk about assumptions, we talk about the big picture, you know, versus details. I think the prosecutor asked some of you if you're a big picture person or a detailed person. I gave you a little bit of my background. When I was in law school, I was a middle school math teacher. And I really loved math. I would, you know, I guess I would call myself, if I'm going to brag, a little bit gifted in math as a young kid. But what really turned me out of math was my 10th grade geometry teacher, because he was in his last year of teaching at my high school. He lived right across, he actually went to the high school. He lived right across the street. And he amazed me when I was a 15-year-old, impressionable young man. And he basically said, look, math only has one correct answer. There is no waffling. It has to be proven methodically. And he wrote, you know, words on the board about, like, assumptions about how, hey, this only can make an ass out of you and me if you assume anything in math or you assume anything in life. And that has stuck with me my entire life, especially being a lawyer. And I'm not a big picture guy. I am a demon for details. How many, I would assume that everybody on the jury panel has looked for a place to live, whether you are renting or buying, whether it's a house, a condominium. And, man, you go into a couple places, pull up to the driveway, and they look great. Big picture. Wow, this is a nice house. Go into the bathroom, and everything looks beautiful, a tile. But then you start really looking at the details, and you start thinking, man, I don't know. They didn't really look like they used the right drywall here. They didn't mud the tile. They just got it big. They plastered onto the drywall. That stuff's going to fall apart in five years. I mean, you start looking at things carefully. You start looking at the details. And what do you do? You make a decision based upon the details, not the big picture. And that's what you have to do here. And I'm going to tell you why I believe that what you're going to hear and see in this case. I may be mistaken in some parts, but here's what I think I know about this case, and what I believe you're going to see and hear in the testimony, pictures, etc. And I think it will hopefully lead you to believe the same thing that I believe, that there is, in fact, a lot of reasonable doubt as to what occurred here to Ms. Elkins. First of all, I think that it's, first and foremost, it's premature. People go missing for various reasons all the time. I think just a few weeks ago, I was listening on the radio to somebody who I think lived in Wisconsin. They had a little fishing boat, not a motorized, a little motorized fishing boat. Married kids, goes out on this fishing boat on a lake in Wisconsin, or wherever it was. And all of a sudden, you know, the boat appears, is floating in the water. He's disappeared. And a few years goes by, and all of a sudden, somebody finds him living in some country in Eastern Europe. And now is married to some woman he met online. And the police actually called him, and he had no intention of coming back. But for years, they felt that he had been, he died, even though they couldn't find his body in the lake. So this, you know, isn't so unusual. We simply don't know what happened. Second, and I got, I'm going to not number, but I'm going to give you a bunch of reasons. Let's start with her family. Mom, sisters, I think you're going to hear that they don't really know her as well as they think they do. For instance, she was with DeAndre Booker as boyfriend and girlfriend for about a year. The facts are going to show you they didn't even know his last name. You will hear in the last week of December of 2024, up to January 2nd, that supposedly she was involved with another guy. Madly in love, exclusive, serious, a serious relationship. Don't think the family knew about that. Believe they're not going to know about Ashley's prior problems. That in the last few years, in 2023, 2024, she had some problems. She was arrested. She was charged with a felony. She was arrested for drunk driving a few months before this happened. And I think there's going to be some other things that are going to come out, in this case, about part of her life that maybe she kept secret from her family. Another reason. Let's talk about premeditation. Prosecutor put that up on the thing. I'm a little bit old school, so I'm not a big fan of technology, so I'm just going to read you the instruction again. They have to prove that Mr. Booker caused her death. How did he cause her death? That has to be proven in this case. And the premeditation has to be real and substantial reflection for long enough to give a reasonable person a chance to think twice about the intent to kill. The killing cannot be the result of a sudden impulse without thought or reflection. The only thing they have with regard to premeditation, let me back up. I've been doing this a long time and have represented a lot of people charged with murder. And particularly with first-degree murder, they're right. They don't have to prove motive, but it certainly helps to figure out premeditation. And in most of the cases that I've been involved in, particularly when people get convicted, it's an obvious motivation. Okay? I mean, oh, killed this person, killed my husband, killed my wife for the insurance money. Man, I had to shoot this dude because he was stepping on my territory because he's a rival drug dealer. Motivation. I had to shoot this guy because we were involved in criminal enterprises together and he was about to rant me out. And I didn't want to spend the rest of my life in prison. Listen, there's usually a very obvious reason or motive for somebody to think it through and actually commit premeditated murder. They have none of that here in this case. The only thing they do is have these Google searches. Now, I'll say a little bit about that. In fact, you're going to hear from Ashley's own mother in terms of motive. And it's just the opposite of an intent to commit murder. When she reports Ashley missing at about 8.30, 8 o'clock at night on January 2nd, Officer Quaranta comes to her home around 8.30 p.m. and starts to, you know, gather information. Why do you think, you know, your daughter's missing, etc. And he asks her specifically, well, you know, after being heard that they were ex-boyfriend, ex-girlfriend, etc., why would she go over there today? And she tells the police officer that I feel like because she has some financial problems and he's like a person to help out. With these Google searches, yeah, they sound horrible. Was that really what he was searching for, what he was doing? You've got to look at some of that carefully, all right? I mean, I think the prosecutor asked a few people in the jury box the last couple days about, hey, do you watch CSI? Do you watch 48 Hours? Do you watch these crime shows? And I think a few people said, oh, yeah, we do. I mean, my girlfriend watches these incessantly and then is asking me questions about it and Googling stuff, and I would hate to see all the stuff on her phone that she's Googled over the last couple years watching these shows. Also, take a good look at these Google searches because a lot of them contain some other things about mental state, suicide. So what was he looking for or, you know, looking at in terms of a silencer and a gun, shooting a gun through a pillow, et cetera? Was it about himself or to somebody else? The other thing we need to look at is the length of this relationship. She was with him for around a year. She was over to that apartment a lot. I mean, God only knows what was left there. Skin, hair, DNA, blood, cut herself shaving in the bathroom. Who knows? A lot of reasons that it could be left there. Mr. Booker, you'll find out, was a single man, all right? And having been single for, you know, about 21 years living on my own, I would say that you walk into my condominium, it may not be squeaky clean. In fact, I don't really do an absolute full cleaning unless I am going to have people over and don't want the place to look like a mess and, or moving. The other thing you're going to find out is that Mr. Booker was still Ashley's go-to person, especially when it came to money. I think you're going to see some evidence that this car that was driven over to his house and moved, that he gave her money to buy that car so she could get to work. There's also been some other evidence that they're going to point out that seems, you know, some kind of, somehow nefarious. But the fact is, you're going to find out that he also had, the police also found an eviction notice because he was laid off from a job that he had for about six years and couldn't pay his rent. He already had plans in advance that weekend to go up to Flint to spend some time with his former girlfriend by the name of Brandy Wolford. And that even one of the officers who searches the apartment on January 3rd talks about, well, yeah, he's probably got his bleach and the gloves because he's got to clean up to move. You'll also find out when we watch some of these videos, they showed you one picture of him taking, you know, some garbage, a bag, or a TV box out to dumpsters. The police checked those dumpsters, found nothing of an evidentiary value. They talk about nobody seeing her leave the apartment. And here's a big hole in their theory about what happened to Ms. Elkins. There's all kinds of video surveillance camera in these kind of three separate but similar apartment complexes on Pinehurst Road in Roseville. The one gaping hole which you'll hear about from at least two detectives is that there's no video surveillance cameras that capture the actual entrance to DeAndre Booker's particular apartment building. So there's nothing that can show anybody walking in or out of it. There's only one way to get in or out of his apartment, and that's the front lobby door. There's no back exit. And the video cameras do not show if you were to walk out of that door and turn immediately to your right to go east and get onto this Pinehurst Street. No cameras would pick that up. None. So it's equally plausible, at least in theory, that Ms. Elkins left his apartment, like he said she did, had other plans, maybe picked up by somebody else. Nothing would have been caught on camera. The other thing that I think is weird to me, and you'll have to figure this out, is that her family starts to worry that she's missing before 5 o'clock in the afternoon. This is a single, you know, grown woman, and that is a little concerning to me. Now, the police in Warren on January 2nd, they get the call about, hey, you know, my daughter might be missing. I already told you the officer came. They asked for things. And I think you're going to find some contradictions or inconsistencies in what the Elkins family tells the police officer and what the officer thinks himself about her phone being on or off the locations, etc. And be a little bit weary of these, you know, cell phone locations because they're not particularly pinpoint accurate, all right? You'll hear officers say that these pings or locations, they're based on where the cell towers are and that they range from, you know, 500 or some meters to 3,300 meters, which is, you know, over two miles. Here's something that there is no doubt about. The Elkins family, which members in particular, I don't know, but there's two sisters, a mother. There's a father of Ashley Elkins' children. There's a friend by the name of LaShawn Ross. They start going over to that apartment complex at 5 p.m. on January 2nd to see if they can, where's Ashley at? They continue going there continuously, and there's no doubt whatsoever that what they did is break into his apartment, steal a phone from his apartment, looked in the apartment, found nothing, obviously no Ashley, no body, no blood, nothing, and then they go to the police to this phone that had the dash door order on it to give the police that and to further up, you know, their missing person thing. But they lie to the police. They flat out lie and say, oh, we found this phone on the ground outside of the apartment. And then once they're questioned by a detective a little more, they admit that, no, we actually broke into the apartment, you know. And they lie about breaking in, and they might lie on the witness stand today. But you'll see the damage to the door. There's not a question in any of the police officers' minds that is proof that the door was kicked in or forced open. Now, even though the officers in Warren on January 3rd, when they get this phone, know from the Elkins family and their friend LaShawn Ross that they were in and out of that apartment all day long on January 3rd, and it's now like 4 o'clock in the afternoon, the police decide to do what's called a protective sweep of the apartment on January 3rd at night, looking for Ashley, looking for a body. But question that. They already knew she wasn't there from the family. They went there looking for evidence. And what did they find? You're going to hear that seven trained police officers, including a detective, a lieutenant, went into that apartment. And it's a small apartment. It's one bedroom, one small living room. You'll see pictures. One small bathroom, a galley kitchen. That's it. And they, seven officers, go in there, and they find absolutely nothing. Don't find a gun. You're going to hear some of their testimony. They wrote reports. None of them saw any bodies or persons. None of them saw any signs of a struggle within the apartment. None of them saw any signs of foul play. None of them smelled anything that reeked of bleach or the odor of bleach emanating from anywhere in the apartment. None of them found any blood. None of them found anything that would indicate to them as trained police officers that a homicide took place in that apartment. In fact, you're going to hear Lieutenant Burley of the Roseville Police Department get on the telephone to another lieutenant at the Roseville Police Department and say, I just left out of that apartment. No signs of a struggle. I don't see anything indicative, nothing that is screaming like a homicide took place in there. And that's 9 o'clock or 9.30 at night on January 3rd. You're also going to hear that Mrs. Elkins, Monica Elkins, Ashley's mom, she put up some flyers. You know, I don't know where or around, you know, Roseville or Warren, who knows. But on January 4th, she got a text or a message from somebody. Ashley's being held at an address on Eileen Street in Detroit. Get there as soon as you can, whatever. They call the police. I think they called Warren. Warren sends out the Detroit Police Department. The entire Ashley Elkins family, mom, sisters, whoever else, two carfuls of them, go to this address on Eileen Street. And you're going to hear about how suspicious that home looked when the police got there. They found spent bullet casings. They, the place was like a steel cage, the front porch, an entrance to the front door. You could not come in. They asked about, hey, we're only here to see if there's a girl here that's missing. Can we come in? No, we've got a warrant. Supposedly the owner of the home comes to the scene. Same question, same answer. No, you can't go in. They are very suspicious about what's going on. They call, and the Roseville Police, Warren Police is supposed to be still looking to find Ashley, but do they come out to look at the house? No, do they get a search warrant to go and look at that suspicious house? No, and why? Another reason, suspect bias. The police had already become focused on DeAndre Booker, and they weren't going to look at anything or anybody else as a suspect in this case. Keep in mind, also, another fact you're going to hear. Because the Elkins family broke into that apartment and the door was wide open, 33 and a half hours went by where Mr. Booker was not present in that apartment before the police came in on January 4th in the afternoon and found some little droplets of blood on the bathroom. So how many people, it was virtually open to the public, how many people came in and who knows what in there at that apartment or what they brought in, what they did there. And you're going to hear again, the officers supposedly go in to do a protective sweep of the place on January, afternoon, January 4th, knowing that she's not there anyways. And they're going to say, well, Mr. Booker told us, well, he had seen on social media and people coming in on a post in and out of his apartment. And he was like, hey, called the Macomb County Sheriff's Department. He's like, what the heck's going on here? I got these posts. People are in and out of my apartment. Can somebody just, you know, check that out? Lock my door? He calls a maintenance man at the apartment complex and says, hey, can you go in there and secure my door? And they find blood and this gun. Very briefly about the blood. You'll see the pictures of what they found and how minuscule these blood drops are where they find them. The Michigan State Police expert in blood is going to testify that, you know, they can't measure it, unmeasurable. Don't know how many milliliters, ounces of blood, liters of blood was there. They can't date it. They don't know what was there from the day before, a month before, a week before, or years before. And you're going to see videos. I think they've shown you some, but they didn't really show you much, but they're going to have videos of Mr. Booker supposedly in this outfit. And let's just say it is, for the sake of argument, Mr. Booker. And he's got a golf shopping cart. These apartment complexes are right behind Eastgate Shopping Center on Frasio and Gratiot. Pushing a shopping cart that they want you to believe is somehow nefarious in that area. But you'll see how common it is. You'll hear testimony about, and you'll see video of other people doing the exact same thing and the same place that Mr. Booker had. And they want you to believe that these garbage bags were full of Ashley Elkin's body parts. But the police, I think you'll see, kind of contradict themselves on that because they don't know what was in that shopping cart. They can't see it. You're not going to be able to see it. They don't know if it was one large thing, two things, three things, four things. Some of the bags that were put in other dumpsters didn't contain any body parts. There's no blood found in those. And this whole thing about bleach and gloves. Well, you know what? I have bleach in my house. I have 30-gallon trash bags in my house. It's not unusual. There's nothing nefarious about that. And how do they get to or what evidence do they have about dismemberment or mutilation of a body? I don't think you can mutilate or dismember a body by using bleach or gloves or a garbage bag. Did they find any tools? They found nothing in Mr. Booker's apartment, not even a pair of players. Now, I am the least competent person on earth when it comes to doing handiwork. You wouldn't want to trust me to even put a nail in a piece of drywall. But even I have tools, some hammers, some wrenches. How do you dismember a body? They have absolutely no proof of any of that. Wouldn't you need tools to do that? Why didn't he order tools? You're going to talk about this gun and some bullet fragment that they found in the drain underneath the tub. You know, they took apart, you know, the drain and the pipes. You'll see all of that. And they find some clumps of hair and this bullet. Look at it carefully. Listen carefully to what the experts say about this bullet. It's old. It's rusty. It's corroded. And there's no conclusive evidence whatsoever that it was shot from the gun that was found under the couch. In fact, it's actually excluded as being fired from that gun. That's what you're going to hear. They do not have any viable proof, particularly anything beyond a reasonable doubt, to show what was the way Ashley Elkins died if she's dead at all. It wasn't from that gun. The landfill. They want you to believe that it would have been so difficult to find out what happened to this trash. Well, it wasn't. Okay. They have the bins, the dumpsters registered to a company. They come and pick it up every week. They then put it into a processing plant in the city of Roseville. They know exactly where that, when and where that dumpster was put into the processing plant in Roseville. And then that plant knows exactly the day, time, and location of where they hauled all that trash to that particular landfill. So they knew it wasn't acres that they had to process. It was a small, you know, amount of thing. You're going to hear the detective in charge is going to actually tell you that they knew they were in the right spot. They were finding mail from the surrounding area of Roseville in the vicinity of Pinehurst Street. So we knew we were in the correct area at the landfill. We were just unlucky. No, they weren't unlucky. She was never there. You're telling me a whole body wouldn't be found after a week? It's because she was never there. There's no proof that she was ever there or ever in that dumpster. Last, but certainly not least, there should have been, I think, a further investigation into another suspect. And we'll get into that later at the conclusion of this case. Now, I've given you about two dozen reasons that I think the evidence, the testimony, and the facts are going to show you that you should have a reasonable doubt as to Mr. Booker being found guilty of first-degree murder. But before I end, and I'm going to end shortly, I hope, I want to talk about what might be the scenario if you believe that Mr. Booker, that something happened in that apartment. Maybe it was an argument. Maybe it was in the heat of passion. Maybe something, you know, occurred there that wasn't intended. And I believe you may have to decide, and we talked about this in Voidiro the past two days, that it may not be all or nothing. Guilty or not guilty of first-degree murder. There's other very serious charges that you may have the option of finding him guilty of, one of which is manslaughter. And that means something that happened in terms of without cause, without premeditation. In other words, if somebody didn't have a reasonable time to calm down, thinking disturbed by emotional excitement to the point that a reasonable person might have acted on impulse without thinking twice, from passion instead of judgment, something that would cause a reasonable person to act rationally or on impulse. The law doesn't say what these things are, and that's for you to decide. But the defendant must have had acted before a reasonable time had passed to calm down and return to reason. So it's equally plausible that something like that occurred if you believe anything occurred in that apartment. And these are also serious crimes that you may have to make choices about. The prosecutor is going to try to sell you on some big picture puzzle with a bunch of pieces missing and say, well, you know what, let's just see the big picture and ignore all the details. And I'm telling you, that is not right. And it's because they don't really have any solid or airtight facts or evidence to prove Ashley Elkins' manner or cause of death if, in fact, she is dead. In order to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt, they cannot succeed on circumstantial evidence. That's just assumptions, a guess. The law simply does not allow you to convict somebody, particularly of murder, based upon a guess as to what really happened. And I trust that you all will be listening carefully, dissecting the testimony and evidence critically through the prism of consistency, corroboration, common sense that we talked about, and apply the instructions of law the judge is going to give you. And even if it hurts or stings or is a little bit sad for the Elkins family, do your sworn duty, do your legal duty, and find DeAndre Booker. Can't be found guilty of first-degree murder beyond a reasonable doubt. Thank you.