Justin Thurber’s capital murder trial will include plenty of testimony from area women who say Thurber followed or harassed them in the years leading up to the death of Jodi Sanderholm.
Judge Jim Pringle ? in a written ruling released Wednesday ? granted 18 of 20 motions to allow evidence related to the defendant’s alleged prior bad acts. The state had asked the evidence be permitted during a hearing earlier this year.
Prior bad acts testimony is often used to establish a defendant’s past pattern of behavior by detailing past incidents, that may or not be criminal offenses.
Thurber, 25, faces charges of capital murder, rape, aggravated kidnapping and aggravated sodomy. If convicted of capital murder he could face the death penalty.
Pringle’s ruling means that jurors, who have yet to be selected, will hear from witnesses like Arcelea Vasquez who testified Thurber took her for a ride in the country against her will. Vasquez and a younger female friend said the defendant was supposed to be showing them a car he had for sale.
Instead he is said to have driven to the country and held the girls inside the car. When Vasquez and the girl became frightened, Thurber is said to have started touching his penis.
Evidence will also be allowed in regard to Thurber watching through a window as Sanderholm undressed years before she was murdered. Pringle said the testimony could show that Thurber knew where the victim lived.
The two motions, Pringle denied outright were minor. The jury will not hear that Thurber took a Criminalistics course that might have offered him information on how to conceal physical evidence. The judge also disallowed testimony that Thurber may have been aroused by a student publication produced at Cowley College.
Sanderholm was a student and dance team member at Cowley College. Aside from those denials, Pringle sided with the prosecution in allowing a variety of testimony that details stalking, note writing and sexual behavior that prosecutors have contend set a pattern leading up to Sanderholm’s death in Jan. 2007.
In addition to the prior bad act rulings, Pringle also upheld the prosecution’s right to seek the death penalty. Defense attorneys had argued the death penalty is unconstitutional.
Pringle also approved the introduction of a letter hand delivered to Chris Davis of Winfield. Thurber is alleged to have written the letter to Davis last year asking for help in establishing an alibi for Thurber on the day of Sanderholm’s disappearance.
The letter is admissible as long as the state can provide an appropriate foundation for introducing it.
Thurber’s trial is scheduled to begin June 24 but the defense has asked for a continuance and change of venue. Those motions will be ruled on later this month.
