Testimony Underway Against Accused Killer of Two USC Graduate Students
Tapping his pencil and sporting a shiny red button-up and vest, Javier Bolden sat expressionless throughout the witness testimony in Monday's trial.
Bolden, the man accused of killing USC Graduate students Ming Qu and Ying Wu in April of 2012, pleaded not guilty but could face the death penalty if found guilty.
Back in February, Bolden's suspected accomplice, Bryan Barnes, pleaded guilty to two counts of first degree murder. Barnes is now serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
Witnesses were questioned one by one about the deaths of the two Chinese engineering students. Judge Stephen Marcus asked for civilian witnesses not to be video taped for safety reasons.
Two years later, Police Officer Ricardo Hernandez is still shaken up recounting his response to the scene on the night of the killings.
"It was a rainy and cold night," said Hernandez. "We were doing our best to try and preserve the evidence because we didn't know what we had at the time. Once I got to the porch, I noticed that there was a male lying in a pool of blood next to a door with broken glass."
Deputy District Attorney Dan Akemon went through images and maps of the crime scene asking his witnesses to recount specific details. Akemon also presented the jury with recordings detectives made of Bolden's phone conversations.
It was just last Thursday that jurors were shown a video of Bolden bragging about the killings to a cellmate. "Boom, boom, and then that was it," he said.
