Mother Reads Texts She Received From Phone Of Murdered Daughter In Court
(CBS) -- Chilling text messages were revealed in court Wednesday in the murder trial of John Wilson Jr.
Wilson is accused of killing 14-year-old Kelli O'Laughlin in her Indian Park Home. Prosecutors say Wilson sent the texts to the murdered teen's mother.
CBS 2's Suzanne Le Mignot reports in opening statements, prosecutor Guy Lisuzzo said DNA, surveillance video and cell phone tower evidence prove John Wilson Jr. murdered 14-year-old Kelli O'Laughlin.
Defense attorney John Paul Carroll told jurors, "Don't believe everything you hear."
Carroll said Kelli was grounded because she got two C's in school and her own mother told police she thought her daughter committed suicide because, "She got those two C's."
Lisuzzo told the jury Wilson used Kelli's cell phone to send her mother Brenda, taunting text messages. On the stand, Brenda O'Laughlin read the messages.
The first: "Hello Brenda," followed by: "Love your pic," and "She wanted me to tell you something before I killed her," and "Think I'm in love with you Bren."
Moments later, Brenda would look down at her screen and see her daughter's picture right before her eyes. A phone call was coming in. She didn't answer.
That was followed by the message: "Text me." Then: "You've got two min (minutes) to text me before I break this phone."
Brenda says she texted back, "OK"
Then got the reply, "That's my boo."
Brenda says she texted back, "Who are you and what do you want?"
"Are you my bro?" Saying she meant to write "boo."
She got the reply, "You'll know soon when I come see you. In the meantime, send me a charger for this phone so I can see you a lot."
Brenda replied, "Can you send me a picture of you so I can look at you a lot?"
After that, the text messages stopped coming. On the witness stand, Kelli's father John O'Laughlin said he called police to tell them about the cell phone activity. He also described going to the hospital and being told he couldn't see his daughter, saying:
"It's hard to process that. You take her to school in the morning and she's gone," he said.
