The trial has begun for a Missouri man accused of killing three people in a Brooklyn Park Home last April.
Eddie Mosley, 35, was indicted on nine counts of first-degree murder for the shooting deaths of DeLois Brown and her parents, James and Clover Bolden. During the first day of the trial, 12 News discovered Mosley is the illegitimate son of Brown's first husband.
Typically, a trial would begin with jury selection, but at a hearing last Tuesday, Mosley waived his right to a jury trial. Now his fate is in the hands of Judge Toddrick Barnette.
Without speaking about this case in particular, Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman told us defendants often opt out of jury trials in what he calls "more horrific cases."
"They believe that, rightly or wrongly, that judges can view facts a little less passionately than jurors can," Freeman told 12 News in an interview last week.
In opening statements Monday, the prosecution said that while the human carnage was unspeakable, the evidence will speak loudly and clearly that the murders were premeditated.
On the morning of April 9 last year, the bodies of DeLois Brown and her parents were discovered in the home that was also a daycare. A woman, who had just dropped her son off early that morning, noticed a suspicious man on a bike near the home. She called to alert Brown, who answered the phone and appeared to be in a struggle with someone before the line went dead. The woman returned to the home to find three adults shot to death. The woman's son was not harmed.
According to the criminal complaint, days before the murders, Eddie Mosley had been charged with sexually assaulting his teenage niece. He told the child's mother to make the charges "go away" and she refused. The documents stated Mosley knew the girl used to go to Brown's in-home daycare in the mornings. What he didn't know what was that routine had changed.
The prosecution said Mosley traveled to Minnesota to kill the girl and DeLois Brown. Instead, he fatally shot Brown, James Bolden and Clover Bolden twice in the head.
The prosecution said it will use witness testimony as well as security footage from a Brooklyn Park gas station to prove Eddie Mosley was in Minnesota on the morning of the murders and committed the crimes.
Mosley's defense attorney said he will argue Mosley had no motive to harm Brown and her parents. He'll also argue prosecutors do not have physical evidence, no gun, bike, fingerprints or DNA, to prove Mosley was responsible for the murders.
Renee Banot
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