WHITE CO., Ill.—The jury trial of the girlfriend of a White County murderer kicked off mid-afternoon today, January 21, with testimony from the county sheriff and the playing of a DVD.
Candice Brown, from last summer
And it might be that DVD that seals the fate of Candice Brown, 31.
Brown, charged with two counts of Obstructing Justice in connection with convicted murderer Danny Coston’s killing of two young White Countians (Jacob Wheeler and Jessica Evans), faced a jury of her peers this afternoon after another hour and a half of jury selection finally landed 12 jurors and one alternate. The testimony began with one of the state’s two witnesses, White County Sheriff Doug Maier, recounting the interview he and Illinois State Police investigator Bryan Harms conducted with Brown on the evening of August 31, 2012. During this interview, other ISP officials were processing the scene of Coston’s truck (which ultimately was what lead officials to him as the suspect, as the bed of it contained a considerable amount of blood evidence) as well as alternately interviewing Coston himself in the same building. And during this interview, Brown, who was pregnant at the time with Coston’s third child, changed her story five times, telling investigators that she had gone out to what ended up being the murder scene to check on Coston; that she found him messing with his truck; that she found him messing with his boat; that she saw him speaking to a man in a black truck; and then ultimately, that she never saw him at all, she was only recounting what Coston had told her had happened.
Doug Maier
Ultimately, she said she didn’t remember any times of any of the events of the evening at all, whether she’d gone to the scene (near the Little Wabash River in the Centerville area of White County) or not…and when asked why she’d changed her story so much, she advised that she “didn’t want me and Danny to be the ones in the vicinity where they’d found the body.”
The body of Evans had been found the previous Monday; at the time, Wheeler’s body was within a couple of hours of being discovered in a very rural area of neighboring Wayne County to the north.
Brown’s attorney Matt Vaughan of Fairfield asked a few perfunctory questions of Maier on cross-examination, but this lasted only about five minutes.
It’s expected that Maier will take the stand again in the morning, however, to conclude cross and any re-direct from White County State’s Attorney Denton Aud. The state’s other witness is Harms. It’s likely that the case will be turned over to the jury tomorrow at the conclusion of Harms’ testimony and closing arguments. We’ll have complete coverage of the DVD-recorded interview in the upcoming print version, on stands January 29, and available right here at the e-Edition next Monday night, January 27.