KAUFMAN COUNTY, Texas — A Kaufman County jury is hearing evidence in the capital murder trial for Charles Brownlow Jr. who is accused in a 2013 killing-spree in Terrell, Texas, which left five dead.
KAUFMAN COUNTY, Texas — A Kaufman County jury is hearing evidence in the capital murder trial for Charles Brownlow Jr. who is accused in a 2013 killing-spree in Terrell, Texas, which left five dead.
Brownlow is first being tried before 422nd District Court Judge B. Michael Chitty in the death of 22-year-old Luis Gerardo Leal-Carillo.
Jurors began hearing testimony on Wednesday which included the display of the surveillance video in Ali’s Market where Leal-Carillo was working as a clerk when he was gunned down.
A defense motion filed Monday for a continuance, one of many filed in the case, was denied by Chitty as was a motion to disbar photography in the courtroom.
On Wednesday, Brownlow pled not guilty to the capital murder charge by reason of insanity.
Last year, Brownlow had undergone a competency hearing and several rounds of evaluations from state, court, and defense experts. He was later found competent to stand trial.
During those competency hearings, the state’s and court’s experts accused Brownlow of “embellishing symptoms of mental illness” as a “viable defense” stating Brownlow was “able to turn on and off his delusional, hallucinatory state at will.”
1,400 jurors were summoned earlier this year during the jury selection process.
Brownlow, who is being represented by the Texas Regional Capital Public Defender’s Office, is accused in the shooting deaths of his 61-year-old mother, Mary Brownlow, his 55-year-old aunt, Belinda Young Walker, 30-year-old Kelleye Pratt Sluder, Jason Michael Wooden, and 22-year-old Luis Gerardo Leal-Carillo.
