Jury in North Texas capital murder trial hears from witnesses who tried to save victim

A witness who admitted Tuesday that she watched portions of the capital murder trial of Jerry Elders online will be allowed to testify, Visiting Judge Lee Gabriel decided Wednesday morning.

Defense attorneys for Elders asked Gabriel before the jury was brought back in to a North Texas courtroom whether they would be allowed to question Joshua police Detective Lee Sosebee about her watching the trial.

Miles Brissette, one of Elders’ attorneys, told Gabriel he thought the detective’s decision to break rules explained to her Monday was an important detail to establish whether Sosebee is a trustworthy witness. Gabriel said he would not be allowed to question her about that.

Elders is charged with capital murder after authorities said he shot Burleson police officer Joshua Lott three times during a traffic stop in 2021, fled and then kidnapped a woman, stole her truck, killed her and left her outside the Joshua Police Department. If found guilty of capital murder, he faces the death penalty or life in prison without parole.

The first thing the jury in Johnson County’s 413th District Court heard Wednesday was testimony from Joshua Simmons, who worked across the street from the Joshua Police Department the day Elders is accused of shooting the police officer and murdering 60-year-old Robin Waddell.

Simmons told the jury he was inside a building when he heard tires screech and stepped outside. He saw the truck Elders was driving break through the gate into the back parking lot of the Joshua police station. He saw Waddell get out from the rear driver’s side door and rush toward the back door of the police department, where she collapsed, he testified. At some point between when the truck entered the parking lot and when Waddell collapsed, he said he heard a gunshot.

Today's top stories:

→ After guilty verdict in Fort Worth capital murder, defendant shouts to jury in outburst

→ Fort Worth ISD could close these seven middle schools. Here’s why

→ Fort Worth parents allege toddler son neglected at school

🚨Get free alerts when news breaks.

Simmons said he then saw the truck turn around and leave and saw Waddell on the ground outside the police station’s back door.

Defense attorneys questioned Simmons about his ability to see anything that happened. Simmons maintained that he was able to see everything despite the distance and that vehicles seen in a satellite image displayed by the prosecution weren’t there to block his view.

Defense attorneys also pointed out that Simmons’ account of what happened that day has changed. In a written report, he told police he didn’t hear anything that happened after the tires screeched and that he could see that the truck had a driver but couldn’t tell anything about him.

In court Wednesday, though, Simmons said he saw the driver and that he was a white man with a slight build and a shaved head.

Jurors also heard from Raymond Kratky, a fire inspector with Cleburne who was a fire marshal in Joshua in 2021. Kratky told jurors how he and other firefighters and paramedics responded to the scene and attempted to save Waddell’s life. They tried to open airways, attempted to find and stop bleeding and, after she was loaded into an ambulance, inserted a breathing tube. She was not breathing and had no pulse, but was showing electrical signs that her body was trying to make her heart beat.

She had stopped bleeding by the time Kratky reached her, something he said was not a good sign.

Dr. Sam Haroldson, who works in the emergency room at Texas Health Huguley hospital near Burleson, also testified about attempts to save Waddell’s life. He said that before she arrived at the emergency room, paramedics had given her three doses of epinephrine in attempts to restart her heart.

In the end, Haroldson said, it appeared she was shot in the heart.

“If someone was shot in the heart in the emergency room and you were able to treat them immediately, would you be able to save them?” prosecutors asked Haroldson.

He said it was unlikely. It would be even less likely given that she had been taken around 20 miles by ambulance. He’s never seen someone survive a gunshot wound to the heart.

Haroldson testified that he and his team of doctors and nurses tried to relieve tension around Waddell’s heart and a possible collapsed lung. Doctors tried another two doses of epinephrine, then Haroldson pronounced her dead. When asked what comes after that, his response was strained.

“That’s the hardest part,” he told the jury. He paused and cleared his throat a few times. When he spoke again, his words were choked. “You notify the family.”

Family members of Waddell, sitting toward the front of the courtroom, endured an emotional experience during Haroldson’s testimony. When he talked about attempts to save her, some began crying and a couple put arms around each others’ shoulders. One man had to stand up and leave the courtroom when images of her body were shown.

The images were shown over objections from defense attorneys.

The defense questioned the handling of Waddell’s body after she was pronounced dead when prosecutors called to the stand a civilian investigator who was with Joshua police at the time.

At the direction of a Texas Ranger, Janet Ayala, a civilian investigator with Joshua police, was sent to the hospital to photograph Waddell’s body, clothes and belongings and collect evidence, she told jurors Wednesday afternoon. While she was doing that, a bullet fragment fell from Waddell’s bra. She collected that and put it in a plastic biohazard bag.

A photo of the fragment was shown to jurors.

Elders’ defense attorneys questioned whether Ayala waited for a death investigator from the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office, which covers Johnson County. When she told them she did not, the defense asked if she had any training in collecting evidence from a body or handling a body without hurting the evidence, to which she said she did not.

Ayala said she also had no training in how to properly take crime scene photos, did not secure the evidence properly and did not follow protocols that called for a death investigator from the medical examiner’s office to be present before the body of a possible homicide victim is touched, which she told the jury she didn’t know about.

Before breaking for lunch, the prosecution called Deputy Ellen Kyle to talk about how she found Elders’ ID in an RV after she was called to investigate a possible burglary.

Kyle, a deputy with the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office for the last four years, was sent to the RV in Joshua around 4:25 p.m. on April 14, 2021. A friend of the RV owner told dispatchers he suspected the vehicle had been burglarized. Kyle got permission from the RV owner to check inside, where she found a wallet on the bed. She told the jury that when she opened the wallet, she found Elders’ ID.

She knew Elders was wanted in connection to the killing of Waddell and the shooting of Lott and called for investigators. They secured the scene and photographed the wallet. While a photo was shown in court, the image was blurry and it was difficult to tell what a card inside of it said. Kyle testified that a card in the wallet, visible in the picture but illegible because of the image quality, did have Elders’ name.

John Sims, a deputy with the Cooke County Sheriff’s Office, was one of the law enforcement officers who participated in Elders’ arrest.

Dispatch called out to Sims and a corporal in the car with him to say that Elders, a suspect accused of shooting a police officer and murdering a woman, was heading toward Gainesville, and that he may not be alone, Sims told jurors. Sims was south of Gainesville, so he turned on his lights and sirens and started heading toward town. It took him about eight minutes to get there.

When he got there, Sims and his partner got out of their patrol vehicle, took cover behind it and called for backup, Sims said in court Wednesday. They were next to a cluster of trees in an otherwise open field bordering Weaver Street, near Interstate 35. They called for backup and police officers began showing up.

“Y’all ready to move up?” one officer can be heard asking in footage from Sims’ body-worn camera shown to the jury.

“We need to do something,” another replies.

The footage shows Sims, a sheriff’s office corporal and three Gainesville police officers approach the treeline. There are two in the front, one each to the left and the right and Sims bringing up the rear. Sims is walking backwards but quickly turns when he hears someone call out.

“Get your hands up,” one officer barked out in command to Elders, trying to hide in the brush of the treeline. “Get your hands up. Get ‘em up.”

“County, we’ve got one at gunpoint,” Sims can be heard informing dispatch.

As Elders is being handcuffed he’s asked by someone in the video where “the gun” is. He tells them that it’s in a truck.

Attorneys defending Elders pointed out that Elders was not Mirandized at that point, even though he was under arrest, before that question was asked. Defense attorneys argued that anything Elders said before he was Mirandized is inadmissible, while Sims argued there were exigent circumstances.

The field and trees were near a middle school and the school’s practice soccer field, and authorities weren’t sure if there was more than one suspect, Sims said. They couldn’t be certain that Elders didn’t throw a gun away somewhere, where another suspect who hadn’t been discovered could find it or where a student could pick it up.

Defense attorneys pointed out that the school was already on lockdown by the time, police officers and deputies had surrounded the area where Elders was found and Sims and the others who arrested Elders walked away from the area with their backs to it, with nobody staying behind to make sure there weren’t other suspects who might attack. They said that is evidence there was no real exigent circumstance.

This is a developing story. For the latest updates, sign up for breaking news alerts.