One Moment of Humanity in a Brutal Murder Trial

[00:00:00] Tony DeWitt: One of the last witnesses for the state was the mother of Jade Benning, and it was a very painful examination and a very ineffective cross-examination, but it was one of those things that had to be done. I'll tell you more in just a moment. Hi, Tony DeWitt here. Formerly, I was a Missouri attorney in active practice. Then I retired. Then I unretired and started a YouTube channel, and I bring you all kinds of stuff about trials and the law. So no legal advice is given, but stay tuned. This is what we're talking about today. We're back in the Tennessee murder trial of Blaze Taylor, who is accused of poisoning his pregnant girlfriend, Jade Benning, with a fatal dose of cocaine in February of 2023. Prosecutors allege that Taylor secretly placed cocaine in Benning's drink because he did not want the pregnancy, while the defense argues the state cannot prove who supplied the cocaine, and points to questions surrounding the forensic evidence, the investigation, and the medical examiner's conclusions. One of the last things you want to do if you're a prosecutor is remind the jury at the end of the trial who this person was that has been lost. You need a little bit of an emotional push, and so you go to mom or dad, just the way they went to Mr. Fernandez in the Pino trial. They go to Jade's mom in this trial. And she held it together surprisingly well. It was very tough, very emotional. I'm not going to show all of it. I'm going to give you a flavor of it, and I'm going to do a little bit of the cross-examination. This is going to be a much shorter video. But what it is, is a counterpoint to the rest of this case. It is an examination on both sides that actually pays attention to the emotions in the case. It actually pays attention to doing no harm to either case. And in that respect, it made it a big difference. Most of the cross-examination has been done by Ms. Hollins, I believe it is. And she has been pretty tough and pretty brutal, particularly on most of the state's witnesses. But the gentleman who did this cross-examination was, indeed, a gentleman. And it's good to see in a case like this. Because the last thing you want to do with your client potentially having deprived her of her child is rub salt in that wound. And he tried very hard not to do that. So I have to give some kudos to the defense in that regard. Let's watch a little bit of the direct examination now. [00:03:16] Speaker 2: Can you describe your relationship with your daughter, especially as she's growing up in high school and college and kind of that time before she moved to Nashville? [00:03:36] Speaker 3: She was my life. Everything I did was for her. I'm chair competitions, high school chair, supporting her through her pole learning, [00:03:54] Speaker 2: and even supporting her to move to Nashville. Do you want her to move to Nashville? [00:03:59] Speaker ?: No. [00:03:59] Speaker 2: And can you describe how often would you and Jade communicate? [00:04:09] Speaker 3: We text a whole lot. This generation likes to text versus talk, but pretty much everything. [00:04:17] Speaker 2: Can you describe your relationship with Jade? Obviously every mother-daughter relationship is very different. Did she tell you things and confide in you about what was going on in her life? [00:04:32] Speaker 3: There are always things that a child might come up. [00:04:37] Speaker 2: Was she fairly forthcoming and kind of included you in details about friends and that she was dating someone and things like that? Yes. What, if anything, did she tell you about the father of the baby when she told you she was pregnant? When she told me she had not told him. Did you guys discuss kind of that process of her telling him? Very vaguely, because she was working, and she just said she was going to go. Did she contact you and let you know what happened? [00:05:22] Speaker 3: I text her because I worked day, she worked night, and asked how it did, and she said not good. [00:05:34] Speaker 2: And did you continue to communicate with her about kind of what was going on with her pregnancy as well as if she was having any contact with him? [00:05:45] Speaker 3: Yes. [00:05:46] Speaker ?: Yes. [00:05:46] Speaker 3: Yes. When she told me that he did not want the baby, then that's when they were communicating with me. [00:05:58] Speaker 2: And when you say she told you he did not want the baby, what did she say? That he would never have an abortion. Yes. And Ms. Park's superhero and Detective Miller showed that she sent a series of nine photographs. Are these the photographs that she sent you on February 6th of 2023? Yes, they are. And this is the first image. This second image, did you recognize where she was in this picture? In her kitchen. And specifically, there is a camera to the left of the stove. Were you familiar with that camera? Yes, I purchased it for her. And were you aware, is that where she typically kept that camera? Yes. And this next image is three. Is that another picture that she took that day? Correct. And Ms. Burks, at some point Detective Bree showed up and things started moving in the investigation phase. But can you describe what was happening at the hospital? [00:07:21] Speaker 3: That child just laid down on my support. When we got there, she was having seizure-like activity. They were pumping her with medications. And there was nothing they could do. [00:07:41] Tony DeWitt: Just so you understand what that means, the skull is a very closed space. And inside is the brain. It's wrapped in meningeal layers, among other things. And there are, you know, the eye sockets, and there is the place where the spinal cord comes up through the back of the brain into the medulla oblongata. And when the brain swells, because like any organ in the body, when it's injured, it tends to swell. The body fills it with blood to try and repair the damage, except in this case, the blood that it's swelling in there is actually causing the damage, causing more damage. The pressure builds up and then it pushes the medulla through that space. And there is nothing that can be done to restore brain function after that point. I know this because we had a two-year-old child who got a huge bunch of, I shouldn't rephrase it that way, she got a full liter of salt pour IV solution. And it caused her sodium level to drop, which caused her brain to swell, which caused her to die. And so I've actually seen this in my legal practice. It is an awful thing. And the images from it are awful. So I can only imagine that this woman, who actually works in the ER at the VA hospital in Little Rock, must have been absolutely horrified to hear that. As you can tell, the prosecutor was very gentle with her. And she got to the ultimate end there where, you know, her child is dying and is dead. Now we move to the cross-examination, which again, I think is handled as reasonably as well as it could have been. These are questions he has to ask. And he does it in a gentlemanly way. I know this has been very difficult. [00:09:48] Speaker 3: We've been here all week, all in the week, so I just have a few questions for you, okay? I think you mentioned this, I want to make sure I understood it. Before the 25th and the 26th, you never met Mr. Taylor, right? Great. You mean you never talked to him on the phone? Great. Like your daughter, Jade, they mentioned to him. That was kind of the extent of your contact with Mr. Taylor? Great. He was around here one time, and I said to him I said hi. Like a video call or a phone call or something? I don't remember if it was a video call. I just remember one time she was around him and I said, tell him and said hi. But I've never personally spoken with him. So your comment that her not wanting to post things publicly was because of Blaze. Blaze never told you that, right? I never spoke with him. Okay, I just want to make sure I understood. That was from Jay. Correct. And I know you and your daughter were very close, right? Very close. And I know you've heard a lot of things during this trial. Is it possible there were any little parts of her life that you didn't know about? Most kids have parts of their life that they don't tell their parents about. [00:11:26] Speaker ?: Okay. [00:11:27] Speaker 3: That's fair. I appreciate that. [00:11:29] Speaker ?: The... The... [00:11:30] Speaker 3: Before you... [00:11:31] Speaker ?: Before you... Actually, I'm sorry. Before you got... So... Wait... [00:11:36] Speaker 3: Let me get this right. The party that you were going to have on the 25th birthday, where she was going to have a baby shower and all that stuff. We weren't having a baby shower on the 20... [00:11:51] Speaker ?: Um... Her birthday. [00:11:53] Speaker 3: Or having a birthday dinner. Oh. Was the baby shower around then? The baby shower was going to be in April. Okay. I'm sorry. I thought you were having like a joint birthday party game. Sure. No. Do you know if Blaze was invited to that? No. It was here on Little Rock. Okay. So, so far as you know, he maybe didn't even know about that, right? I'm not sure if he knew or not. Okay. So, so far as you know, he maybe didn't even know about that, right? I'm not sure if he knew or not. Okay. So, so far as you know, he maybe didn't even know about that, right? I'm not sure if he knew or not. Okay. So, so far as you know, he maybe didn't even know about that, right? I'm not sure if he knew or not. Okay. [00:12:27] Speaker ?: Okay. [00:12:28] Speaker 3: So, you don't have any information that Mr. Taylor was even aware that Jake was going to go public about her pregnancy on her 25th birthday? I'm not sure. Okay. Thank you. I know when you, you got here, there was a lot going on. And when did you get Jake's phone? It's somewhere in the mental hospital. So, like 3:30 in the morning? Yes. And you got that from NJ? No. I got that from her step. Her stepmother. Okay. [00:13:04] Speaker ?: Thank you. [00:13:05] Speaker 3: And when you opened her phone and looked in it, when was that? I don't know the exact time. And so you could see in the Blink application and there was a live feed, but you could scroll backwards, right? Correct. And so you can't see in that Blink application when the camera was moved? No, you cannot. It's a live feed. And so you don't have any information about when that camera was moved? No, I do not. When was the last time you saw it in Jake's kitchen? Possibly in those photos. She didn't call me a lot from her kitchen. Okay. [00:13:39] Speaker ?: That's fair. [00:13:39] Speaker 3: Okay. When was the last time you saw it in Jay's kitchen? Possibly in those two others. She didn't call me a lot from her kitchen. Okay, that's fair. Thank you for reading. You need to redirect. [00:14:08] Tony DeWitt: There was a short redirect where the prosecutor said, look, the reason that she was having the birthday party on the 25th is because it was her birthday. She was going to announce her pregnancy. And you have to do that before you have a baby shower so people know you're pregnant. It's pretty much the end of the redirect. Generally speaking, I thought they treated her mom very, very well. And I thought the defense treated her very, very well. And like I said, that's a mark of professionalism for that attorney. He did a great job. He got the information that he needed without bludgeoning the witness, which is a good thing. So that's what I had for you today, a little piece of humanity at the end of a terribly inhumane trial in terms of the subject matter. I mean, at this point, it could very easily go either way. I think a jury could find reasonable doubt because there is no smoking gun. It's entirely a circumstantial case. It's entirely a circumstantial case. And they might very well do that. I don't know. Depends a lot on the jury makeup, on the demographics of the jury, and what they believe about Jade and what they believe about Najaya and what they believe about Blaise Taylor. I guess we'll just have to wait for that to find out. I'll have more on this tomorrow. Thank you again for being here and being a part of the channel. And we'll see you next time. Thanks for watching my video. I really appreciate it. And today, as you go about your business, would you try to do just one kind thing for somebody? It doesn't have to be a big thing. You can open a door for somebody who has their arms full. You could buy somebody a Coke. You could let the manager know when somebody did a really good job for you at the grocery store or at Walmart or someplace else. There are all kinds of things we can do to make people's lives better. And a lot of times, people will always remember to go to the manager and complain. They very seldom remember to go to the manager and say, Hey, you know, that guy over there in produce is top-notch. And I think it's really important to do that. Because I want to make the world a better place. I know you're here probably because you want to make the world a better place. So let's do that. Now let's be respectful of one another. And thank God we live in the greatest country in the free world. I do think that the good folks at YouTube have a few things they want to show you up here that you might be interested in. And if you are, I'd appreciate you clicking. Thanks. Have a great day.