SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Testimony has begun in the trial of a southern Utah man accused of killing a 20-year-old woman in an attack that also left another woman dead.
The Spectrum newspaper of St. George reports that a man who survived a gunshot wound during the violence that night testified Tuesday about finding the beaten and stabbed body of Jerrica Christensen at a St. George townhome in 2010.
Brandon Perry Smith is charged with aggravated murder and aggravated assault. Prosecutors had been seeking the death penalty, but dropped it a year ago so the case could move more quickly.
Smith’s lawyers say their now 35-year-old client was manipulated by a friend who was later convicted in the death of the second woman, 27-year-old Brandie Sue Dawn Jerden.