Friends: Bride showed no emotion upon finding husband's body
MISSOULA, Mont. - A Montana woman on trial for the death of her new husband showed little emotion when she located his body in Glacier
National Park days after she told authorities he had driven off and disappeared, friends of the woman testified.
Jordan Graham, 22, said after finding Cody
Johnson's body that now a funeral could be held and "the cops can be out
of it," Graham's friend Hannah Sherrill testified Tuesday.
Graham, her mother, brother and friends drove to
the park twice in the days after Johnson, 25, went missing on July 7. Graham
climbed down a steep slope to a ledge below the roadway and she called out that
she spotted the body in a ravine below the cliff.
"And then after that she didn't really show
any emotion," friend Cecilia Lewellen said.
Prosecutors say Graham knew where the body was
located all along. She deliberately pushed Jordan from that spot during an
argument about her doubts over their 8-day-old marriage, when she could have
walked away, prosecutors said.
Graham has been charged with first-degree murder, second-degree murder and making false statements to authorities.
Graham has pleaded not guilty. Her defense
attorneys said the couple got into a heated argument and that when Johnson
grabbed Graham's arm, she pushed back to knock his hand off and he fell from
the narrow ledge.
She lied about Jordan's disappearance at first because she was afraid nobody would believe that it was an accident, her attorneys said.
On Tuesday, jurors heard about a cloth found downstream from
where Johnson’s body was found. Prosecutors contend the cloth was used as a blindfold
and are treating it as a key piece of evidence in the trial, reports CBS affiliate KXLF. Jurors were shown a picture of the cloth.
Graham's brother, Michael Rutledge, testified earlier Tuesday that he was angry with Graham because she had lied again and
again.
"She could have told us the truth,"
Rutledge testified, sobbing. "She told one lie, was asked to tell the
truth, and she said it again. And she had to keep adding more lies to cover it
up. And that's maybe why I was mad."
Graham cried quietly during her brother's testimony.