Party-goers, police testify in Washington trial
In the first day of suspect Roderick Washington’s trial on first degree murder charges, state prosecutors spent the first half of the morning calling witnesses from the Cape Coral Police and Fire Departments who responded to a car fire where the bodies of Alexis and Jeffery Sosa were found in 2006.
Forensics investigators Lisa Lansky and Larry Stringham described evidence they recovered from various locations. Lansky said she had recovered a cigarette lighter in the industrial park in Cape Coral where the Sosas and the burned vehicle were found.
Stringham positively identified the body of Jeffrey Sosa through fingerprint
analysis and also processed a home where small amounts of suspected blood was discovered. He could not say whose home it was, only that it seemed not to be occupied at the time.
Scott Johnson, a retired Cape Coral detective, said when he arrived on scene he recognized Jeffrey as “one of the Sosas.”
Johnson and officer Gerald Moll escorted Jeffery Sosa and Alexis Sosa, whose body remained in the trunk of the burned car as it was towed to the Medical Examiner’s Office due to its deteriorated condition.
Washington’s high school friend, 20-year-old Jennifer Dunning, took the stand and testified to what she saw the night the Sosas were tortured and killed.
At Johnston’s birthday party, a fight between party-goers and the Sosas ensued when threatening phone messages were played from the Sosas.
One of the messages on a party-goer’s phone from Alexis Sosa stated that he would “shoot up their house or something,” Dunning told the jury.
While they were beat and tortured, Washington held two guns on the Sosas, she said.
Dunning said she didn’t drink though she smoked marijuana. Many individuals were drinking and doing drugs, she said.
Another person who attended the party, Michael Taylor, has now taken the stand.
He is describing how the Sosas were hog-tied and tortured while Washington guarded, though Taylor’s account places a rifle in his hands rather than two handguns, as Dunning described.
Washington has been charged with two counts each of first-degree murder, kidnapping and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and faces a life prison sentence if convicted.
Assistant State Attorney Marie Doerr described the beating, torture, killing and setting fire of the Sosas at a birthday party at co-defendant Kemar Johnston’s house and a Cape Coral industrial park to 12 jurors and two alternates. She retraced Washington’s alleged involvement in the killings.
Paul Sullivan, Washington’s defense attorney, told the jury there were many people at Johnston’s house that night responsible for what happened to the Sosas. But, he said, evidence will not prove that Washington is guilty of their murders.
“There’s a bunch of people who bear responsibility in this case,” Sullivan said. “But there aren’t 10 people who are guilty of this murder. Mr. Washington is one of the people who are not guilty of this murder.”
Earlier today, the state called Cape firefighter Michael Hannon to the stand. He testified to responding to a fire in an industrial park north of Andalusia
Boulevard and Kismet Parkway, which turned out to be a vehicle fire where he discovered the Sosas bodies and contacted the police department.
Cape Coral Det. Kurt Grau also took the stand. The state presented forensic video of the crime scene on a projector screen. The video shows footage of the Sosas’ bodies and burnt vehicle near a hill in the industrial park.
Washington watched the video quietly.