Attorneys give closing arguments in Briskey trial; deliberation under way

Jun. 22—Attorneys for both the state and defense delivered their respective closing arguments Wednesday morning in the murder trial of Jeffrey Jamall Briskey. Jurors began deliberations Wednesday afternoon around 3:15.

Briskey is charged with three counts of capital murder for the 2017 shooting deaths of Travis Frost, 73, and Joshua Dylan Moody, 23, of Rabbittown, a rural area of Piedmont.

On the sixth full day of a seated jury, trial proceedings came to a close and District Attorney Brian McVeigh began with the prosecution's closing statements.

"Put your thinking caps on and listen carefully to the attorneys," Calhoun County Judge Debra Jones told the jury, which included four alternates besides the usual 12. Of the 12, seven were women, five were men; four were Black and eight were white.

McVeigh began Wednesday by explaining to the jury which capital offenses Briskey was being charged with, and what those actually meant.

— Capital murder with a robbery — McVeigh defined robbery as theft with the use of force. If a person commits felony murder and the special circumstance of a robbery is also committed during the act, then this charge applies.

— Capital murder with a burglary — McVeigh explained that burglary is entering or remaining unlawfully inside the dwelling of another person. He said typically robbery and burglary are intertwined and "bleed into one another."

— Capital murder involving two or more persons — Because both Frost and Moody were killed during the event, this charge applies.

McVeigh said with any capital murder charge, there must be intent to commit that crime. A person must intend to commit the burglary/robbery and the murder for that charge to apply. However, a person can infer intent. McVeigh explained that if a person shoots someone, you can infer that the person "didn't intend good things."

McVeigh said Briskey and co-actor Rhimington Johnson entered the home on Rabbittown road with guns drawn at 4 a.m. July 23, 2017, according to the 911 call made by Frost's widow, Patsy Frost.

Travis Frost saw the men inside the home, and fired a shot at them. Johnson and Briskey shot back. On account of that action, McVeigh noted, if any invitation had been extended to Briskey and Johnson, that invitation was no longer valid.

During co-defendant Sicondria Carter's testimony Tuesday, she said Briskey had been drinking the whole day prior to the murders, consuming "bottles" of alcohol. However, McVeigh pointed out during his closing arguments that Briskey could be seen just before the murders on surveillance tapes at a gas station moving naturally with no signs of intoxication.

Defense attorney Fred Lawton began his closing arguments by writing large words on a white sheet of paper at the front of the courtroom — cat litter, confusion, contradiction and compromise. During his arguments, Lawton referenced the words confusion, contradiction and compromise, and eventually explained "cat litter" as a means of characterizing the state's evidence.

Lawton doubled down on his previous contention that the state had not presented any physical evidence in the case that directly linked Briskey to causing the deaths of Frost or Moody. Lawton discounted the prosecution's key witnesses, claiming each had "credibility issues."

Carter, Johnson and another witness in the case, Miles Wilson, all had reasons to give self-serving statements, according to Lawton. He said Wilson was an "admitted heroin addict" and that Johnson had been on parole the night of the murders for a prior conviction involving an assault where he had shot the victim.

Lawton said Patsy Frost did not directly identify the intruders' race, but rather stated in the 911 call that the voices she heard "sounded black." Lawton said Patsy did not identify Briskey until he was in court, wearing jailhouse garb and surrounded by his attorneys.

He also questioned law enforcement's motives for not testing several items of evidentiary value. Lawton said Patsy Frost was never given a photo lineup to identify Briskey or Johnson, while other witnesses were.

"Why did they not follow regular procedure?" Lawton asked the jury. "Why did law enforcement do this if they thought Mrs. Frost could identify Jeff Briskey?"

Lawton claimed the most "important piece of evidence" in the case was not even tested — the victims' hands for DNA or their fingernail clippings.

"Mistakes were made," Lawton said.

Directly following Lawton's closing statements, Assistant District Attorney Lynn Hammond took the floor with the final arguments of the prosecution.

"The defense would have you believe that there is no evidence in this case," Hammond said.

However, there is a difference between a lack of scientific evidence, and "good ol'-fashioned police work," Hammond said. As a society, folks get caught up with DNA and in the science of a case and often forget there are more facts that shouldn't be ignored, according to Hammond.

To dispute Lawton's claims that Patsy was confused or mistaken, Hammond said Patsy was calm and collected, and corrected the dispatcher on several occasions during the 911 call. Patsy told the 911 dispatcher she was not in the closet, but in her bedroom, and corrected the street address when wrongly stated by the dispatcher, Hammond said. Patsy was of a clear frame-of-mind and had the "wherewithal" to correct the dispatcher, she said.

"Let's call this what it really is," Hammond said. "A home invasion."

Hammond told the jury that Patsy stated she saw two armed men, "arms outstretched with firearms," despite Johnson's earlier testimony that the two were armed but entered the home with the guns in their holsters.

Hammond argued that "if they thought they were invited guests, would they have gone in with their handguns?"

Testimony was given that a frightened Patsy hid in the bedroom while the intruders attacked and murdered her husband and grandson. Patsy was on the phone with 911 nearly simultaneously as the events occurred, according to McVeigh. Hammond said Patsy said that she couldn't defend her husband, so she burned into her mind every bit of information she could about the event.

Frost was beaten in the face and head, his hyoid bone was broken and he was shot in the head and stomach, Hammond stated in her closing arguments. She said the "unfortunate fact" was that Moody brought the two men into his grandparents' home, as Moody originally met with the men for an alleged drug deal prior to arriving at the Frost home.

"Like any grandchild, you run to your grandparents for help," Hammond said.

After all was said and done, it took a while for the court to tell members of the jury about the particular charges they could consider when deciding whether Briskey is guilty, with Jones reading instructions in two separate hour-and-a-half long sessions. Deliberation began after that.

Pizza was ordered for the jurors around 5:30 p.m.