TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) — DNA and cell phone records. Prosecutors presented two of its biggest pieces of evidence in the Henry Segura murder trial Tuesday.
HENRY SEGURA TRIAL | Everything you need to know | Watch trial LIVE | Read live updates |
It's all about proving Henry Segura was at the crime scene. Cell phone data and DNA is the state's method to do just that.
Records presented Tuesday show that Henry Segura had two phones. One was his friend's, Silas Thornton.
Thornton testified that his phone got wet, so he left it with Segura to get it fixed.
An investigator with Tallahassee Police Department found calls and texts between that number and Brandi Peters' number. Cell sites and cell towers put that phone near Peters' home around the time the state says she and her children were killed.
A crime lab analyst discussed DNA findings at the crime scene. But her findings left more speculation.
Jo Ellen Brown, an FDLE crime lab analyst: "Branid, Taniyah, Tamiyah, and Javante are all excluded."
Nathan Prince, Segura's defense attorney: So Henry Segura and all of the victims are excluded from being on that projectile."
Jo Ellen Brown says their testing might have also found an unknown woman's DNA under Peters fingernails. However, the data from the sample was so low, the findings aren't completely reliable.
The state also talked more about Segura's motive. The state says he did it all to get out of paying $20,000 in child support.
In the first interview between Segura and officers, he tells them that he voluntarily put himself up for child support.
However, a representative for the Florida Department of Revenue says Segura was automatically put on child support after Brandi Peters signed up for state assistance.
Eventually, he ended up $20,000 behind in payments. That threatened his welding license, his driving license, and even jail time.
Segura tried multiple times to get off of child support, even using arguments between him and Peters to do so.
"In the message, she stated that I was stupid for signing a birth certificate for a child that was not even mine," said Vance Wiggins, a Florida Department of Revenue Child Support Manager. "She also stated that for the same time that she and I were engaged in a sexual relationship, she was engaged in a sexual relationship with someone else that she claims is the father. "
Paternity isn't necessary if a man signs his name on the birth certificate. Since Henry Segura signed Javante's birth certificate, that made him legally obligated to care for Javante.
DNA experts at the crime scene eventually determined that Javante was Henry Segura's son.
