'I saw my auntie crying,' Atatiana Jefferson's nephew testifies in Aaron Dean murder trial
DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - The nephew of a woman fatally shot in her own home by former Fort Worth police officer Aaron Dean took the stand during his murder trial.
Dean is accused of killing 28-year-old Atatiana Jefferson in October 2019. Jefferson was playing video games with her then-8-year-old nephew, who later told authorities his aunt pulled out a gun after hearing suspicious noises behind the house. Body-camera footage showed Dean didn't identify himself as police.
Atatiana Jefferson's nephew was the first witness called to the stand on Dec. 5, 2022.
"I saw my auntie crying. So, I thought it had to be something serious," he described for the courtroom.
Later during cross-examination, Dean's attorneys brought up a discrepancy between Jefferson's nephew's earlier statements and his testimony.
Dean's defense said the boy told a child case worker during a recorded interview after the shooting that Jefferson had raised the gun. But the boy denied this.
Not long after, the child's cross-examination was paused shortly before Judge George Gallagher called a gallery member to the bench and said he noticed them gesturing to the 11-year-old witness. The gallery member was then sworn in as a witness and told to go sit in the hallway.
"I have noticed that throughout the testimony, you have been gesturing to this witness. I cannot have that. So, I've sworn you in as a witness. If you will sit outside in the hallway, we will call you in when we need you," said Judge Gallagher.
As jury selection was set to start last week, Dean's defense attorney, Jim Lane, died. After years of delays, Gallagher moved forward anyway and, following days of questioning potential jurors, a panel of 12 jurors and two alternates was selected Friday.
The opening day of Dean's trial ended before noon so participants could attend Lane's funeral.
Read the full transcript of his initial testimony below:
What's your mom's name?
"Amber."
And does your mom have any sisters?
"She's got two."
And what are your mom's sister's names?
"Ashley and Atatiana."
And does your mom have any brothers?
"She's got one. His name is Darius."
Do you know the difference between a truth and a lie?
"Yes, sir."
So...I hold up a marker, what color is this marker and let the record reflect I'm holding up a red marker. If I was to tell you this marker was blue, would that be a truth or a lie?
"Lie."
Is it good to tell lies?
"No, sir."
What happens when people tell lies?
"You get in big trouble."
You get in big trouble for telling a lie. So, can you promise me that everything we're going to talk about today will be true things?
"Yes, sir."
Well, I want to talk to you this morning about your aunt, Atatiana. Is that OK?
"Yes, sir."
What did you call your aunt, Atatiana? Did you have any special name for her?
"Aunt Tay."
And did you used to live with aunt Tay?
"Yes."
And when did you live with aunt Tay?
"When she moved in with my granny."
And does your granny have a different name?
"Her name is Yolanda."
Is your granny still here with us?
"No, sir."
And when did she die? Do you remember?
"Three months after my auntie died."
Three months after your aunt Tay?
"Yes, sir."
Do you remember the name of the street that you lived at with your granny and your aunt Tay?
"East Allena, I think." (Worth noting: This is not a typo, Jefferson's nephew initially pronounced the street name incorrectly.)
East Allen?
"Yes, sir."
And why were you living there with your granny?
"Because my mama wasn't doing good yet. So I had to live with my granny."
Was your mom sick?
"Yeah."
And so who else lived there with you and your granny on East Allen Avenue?
"Just me, my auntie and my granny."
Did you like living with your grandmother and your auntie?
"Yes, sir."
What did you like about it?
"I liked how my auntie always played games and my granny took care of me."
What kind of games did your auntie play?
"Apex Legends or Realm Royale."
What kind of games are those? Are those card games?
"They're shooting games."
Are they video games?
"Yes, sir."
Did you get to play with her?
"Yes, sir."
Did you like playing video games?
"Yes, sir."
Did aunt Tay also show you how to do different things like mow the front yard?
"Yes, sir."
And how to do different chores?
"Yes, sir."
What other chores did she teach you to do?
"It's not a chore but she taught me how to make hamburger patties."
Well that was nice of her to teach you how to do that. What other things did you used to do with aunt Tay?
"We used to go to the park all the time."
What would y'all do at the park?
"Sometimes we would play tag, or hide and seek, or just walk around the little park area."
Did you love your aunt Tay?
"Yes, sir."
You miss her?
"Yes, sir."
So, I want to go back to the night that something happened to aunt Tay. Is that OK? If we talk about that?
"Yes, sir."
So, before you were in the bedroom with your aunt Tay? What were you doing? What were y'all doing together?
"Playing video games."
Before then even, did y'all cook hamburgers that night?
"Yes, sir."
Who cooked the hamburger?
"Me."
Alright, did you cook them just like you told us earlier?
"Yes, sir. But I burnt them."
You burned them? How'd you know you burned them?
"Because we was just playing games then we just heard the alarm going off. Then we opened it and a whole bunch of smoke came out of the oven."
And were you cooking these in the kitchen?
"Yes, sir."
So, what did you do after all the smoke came from burning the hamburger?
"We opened up the screen door and let the smoke go...When it was done, we went back playing our video games."
OK. So did you eat those hamburgers?
"Yes...No, it was burnt. Only one of them was fine."
OK. So, what did you do with the burnt ones?
"I threw them in the trash."
And what did you do with the one that survived?
"Ate it."
Was it a good hamburger?
"It was."
And what did you do after you ate that hamburger?
"I went to my auntie's bed and played on my Nintendo Switch."
What's a Nintendo Switch? If I've never heard of it before, how would you explain to me?
"It's like a video game. It's a screen, and it got like two controllers on the side of it."
Is it the type of video game you play on a TV screen? Or is it something you hold in your hand and the screens in your hand?
"Both."
Oh, you can take what's on your screen in your hand and put that on the TV?
"Yes, sir. You could take off the controllers. Like when we bought it, [you] get like a kit or you could plug the HDMI in and take off the controllers and put a screen on it, then you will see it on a TV."
Were you playing it on the TV or in your hand after you ate that hamburger?
"In my hand."
And what was your aunt Tay doing?
"She was playing video games with her friends."
Would she play video games on a handheld device or on the TV?
"On the TV."
Do you remember what type of gaming system it was?
"A PS4."
And when you say she was playing with her friends, were her friends in that bedroom with y'all?
"No, sir."
Where were they?
"They was in another house. She added them to a party so they could talk to each other."
How was she talking to them?
"On a mic."
And was she hearing what they were saying?
"Yes, sir."
And what game was she playing?
"Realm Royale."
So did you end up falling asleep that night?
"No, sir."
What room were you in while you were playing your Nintendo Switch with your aunt Tay?
"Aunt Tay's room."
Were you on the bed, on the floor, or something different?
"On the bed."
And do you remember what you were wearing?
"Only underwears."
Were you under the covers or over the covers?
"Under covers."
Was a little cold?
"No, sir."
It was good underneath the covers?
"Yes, sir."
How long did aunt Tay play video games that night?
"Like an hour or 30 minutes."
Did you ever go to sleep at all? Not before she heard a noise, you didn't fall asleep just for a little bit?
"No, sir."
Alright. So, did your aunt Tay hear noise outside the bedroom?
"Yes, sir."
What were you doing when your aunt Tay heard that noise?
"I was still playing on the Nintendo Switch."
How did you know your aunt Tay heard a noise?
"Because she told me, 'Do you hear it?' And I said, 'No.'"
Were the lights on in that bedroom?
"Yes, sir."
After she told you she heard a noise. What did she do?
"She went to get her weapon out of her purse."
Where was her purse?
"Next to her table she worked at."
Before she heard that noise outside, where was your aunt Tay sitting? Was she at that desk?
"No, she was in the middle of the room...She had her chair in the middle of the room."
And so you said she went to her purse and grabbed out a weapon. What do you mean by weapons?
"A gun."
Was it a big long gun or a gun that you can hold in your hand?
"A gun you could hold in your hand."
And did you see her go to her purse and get that gun?
"Yes, sir."
And what did she do after she took the gun out of her purse?
"She just hold it to her side. She just, like she didn't point it up. She just kept it next to her, like her side."
And where did she go after she picked up the gun?
"She was about to start walking to the window."
And when she walked to the window what did she do?
"I didn't hear nothing after that. I just seen her fell on the floor."
OK, I'm gonna go back just a little bit. Do you remember that night, after all this was over with, going to talk to a lady at a special place in a little bitty room?
"No, sir."
We talked about this before, her name was [redacted]. And you would talk about what happened.
"Like when he took me?"
Yes.
"Oh. Yes, sir."
And you would talk to that lady and told her everything about what happened right?
"Yes, sir."
Did you see whenever your aunt Tay walked towards the window with the gun, did you see her kind of pull the gun up just a little bit away from her side?
"No, sir."
When we talked before, you said that she did kind of pull the gun up a little bit. You remember that? It's OK if you remember it. I mean, I just want you to remember exactly the way you do. Do you remember if she had the gun up or down?
"Down."
Now are you sure she didn't have it up at all?
"No, sir."
OK, and how close did aunt Tay get to the window?
"She was like three feet away."
OK. She got pretty close to the window?
"Yes, sir."
Was she saying anything to you as she got closer to the window?
"No, sir."
Did you hear anything as she got closer to the window?
"No, sir."
Did you see something that happened?
"I seen her fell on the ground."
Did you see anything outside the window?
"No, sir."
You didn't see a man with a badge?
"No, sir."
Did you hear anything when she fell to the ground?
"No, sir."
What happened after she fell to the ground?
"She started crying. And after that, two police officers came and got me."
Did you know what had happened at that point?
"No, sir."
Did you know if your aunt Tay was hurt?
"Yes, sir."
What were you thinking?
"I was thinking, 'Is it a dream?'"
How did you think she was hurt?
"Because she was crying and just shaken."
What happened when the two policemen came into the bedroom?
"They see me and they told me to get up and took me to the back of a police car."
Did one police officer take you or both of them?
"Both of them."
Are you sure it wasn't just the woman police officer?
"No, sir. Like the man, he walked a little bit but then a lady told him like to go check on her...She told the man to go check on my auntie to see if she was still alive and he said, 'OK.'"
Did you know if your auntie was still alive at that point?
"No, sir."
Where did that woman officer take you?
"To the back of a police car."
And when she took you to the back of a police car. What were you wearing?
"Only underwear."
Were you cold?
"Yes, sir."
Were you scared?
"Yes, sir."
Why were you scared?
"Because I see my auntie crying so I thought it had to be something serious."
Did you know what those police were doing?
"No, sir."
And do you know how long you sat in that car?
"Like five minutes waiting for an officer to come [take me] wherever they was gonna take me."
Did another officer show up that you hadn't seen before?
"Yes, sir."
He was different than the two that came in the house right?
"Yes, sir."
And what did that officer do with you?
"He was the owner of the police car, so he gave me like a big shirt to put on and then after that I fell asleep."
Was that officer very nice?
"Yes, sir."
Do you remember his name?
"No, sir. He never told me his name."
But he was really nice?
"Yes, sir."
What happened after you fell asleep?
"I fell asleep and then he woke me up and I was at like little daycare or foster care."
Oh, the place where a woman talked to you?
"Yes, sir."
Was that woman really nice to you?
"Yes, sir."
And she just explained that she had to ask you some questions about what happened, is that right?
"Yes, sir."
When did you find out about what happened to your aunt Tay?
"After a couple of days, when I stayed with my mama, and she came and got me from the place."
And what did you find out happened?
"I seen she died. So, when I seen that she died, I went to my mama and asked her, 'Is that true?'"
Did you find out it was true?
"Yes, sir."
How'd that make you feel?
"I was very upset."
Were you upset that night?
"I wasn't upset, I was confused because I didn't know if it was a dream and if I wasn't waking up still."
Did you hear anyone get shot that night?
"No, sir."
Why don't you think you heard anything?
"I probably just don't remember it."
Did you hear the policeman say anything outside the window?
"I don't remember."
Do you remember him? You remember seeing him at all outside the window?
"No, sir."
The house that you lived at with your granny and your auntie, say how many front doors did it have?
"[It] had two."
And which of those front doors did y'all normally use?
"The sidewalk. Where the car was next to."
The side door that the cars were next to, is that right?
"Yes, sir."
The other door points out to the street right?
"Yes, sir."
Did y'all use that one?
"Sometimes if we ordered something to eat."
Did y'all normally keep the doors closed?
"Yes, sir."
Now because those hamburgers were burning, what'd you and aunt Tay do with those doors that night?
"[We] forgot the front door was open and the screen door was still kind of open."
So, y'all kind of opened up the doors to let the smoke out?
"Yes, sir."
But those glass screen doors were still kind of shut, is that right?
"No, sir."