GALVESTON, Texas – Blood samples and surveillance video are among the evidence prosecutors will use to argue that a Houston man bludgeoned his daughter and shot her girlfriend before dumping their bodies behind a convenience store.
The capital murder trial for James Larry Cosby, 48, began Tuesday in Galveston, near Bolivar Peninsula where the women's bodies were found in March 2014.
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Cosby is accused of killing Britney Cosby and Crystal Jackson, both 24. Authorities believe Britney Cosby was killed at her father's home and Jackson died later. DNA tests determined that blood found at James Cosby's home belonged to his daughter, according to Galveston County prosecutor Paul Love.
A bullet fragment was found in the couple's SUV, Love said, and both surveillance video and witness accounts showed the elder Cosby driving the vehicle the day before the women's bodies were found, The Galveston County Daily News reported.
James Cosby's thumbprint was found on paper near the bodies and investigators traced a cellphone he used that indicated he traveled from Houston to the peninsula and back, Love told jurors.
Prosecutors said they can't prove why the women were killed, only that Cosby, who has pleaded not guilty, is responsible. His attorney, Greg Russell, said the case is based on circumstantial evidence that doesn't link him to the deaths.
No one will testify to seeing the women killed, Russell told jurors, and investigators don't know where Jackson was killed, according to the Daily News.
Cosby voluntarily agreed to DNA testing and gave lengthy video interviews to investigators, Russell said.
"There's a puzzle and they're going to have some pieces to it, but you have to have all the pieces," he said.
In the days after the bodies were found, Cosby was charged with two counts of tampering with evidence. A grand jury last year indicted him on a count of capital murder in the deaths of the women.
Harris County court records show Cosby was sentenced to two years in prison in 2011 for failing to register as a sex offender in connection with a 1994 aggravated assault conviction. He was released from prison about five months before the deaths.