Courtney Coco jurors hear 2nd person who said David Burns talked about her death

Jurors in the Courtney Coco homicide trial broke for the weekend after hearing testimony Friday from Coco's sister, a man who placed defendant David Anthony Burns at the site where her body was found and a woman who said Burns drunkenly told her about Coco being choked.

Burns faces a second-degree murder charge and would be sentenced to life in prison if found guilty by a Rapides Parish jury.

The body of Coco, 19, was found in a Winnie, Texas, building on Oct. 4, 2004. The case went cold, and it wasn't until April 13, 2021, that Burns was indicted and arrested. The state alleges he killed her during a robbery.

Jude Wilson, a graphic designer from Texas, was on the stand most of the morning. He testified that he had been on an errand to buy cigarettes for his now ex-wife when he had to swerve to avoid a car backing out of the property where Coco's body later was found. He said he traveled that road "all the time" because he lived not far off it.

Wilson said he went to the Chambers County Sheriff's Office with his information after the discovery of Coco's body and information about her missing car, including its license plate number, hit the news.

Under questioning from Rapides Parish Assistant District Attorney Hugo Holland, Wilson said when he topped the road on an overpass over Interstate 10, he saw a car at the building, which he described as an abandoned concrete house painted white.

He said he saw someone walk in front of the headlights and get inside, but that there was no light inside the car. The driver began backing out, but never stopped. Wilson said he was paying attention because he was afraid the driver would hit him. It was a close call, he said.

"I had to swerve out of the way," he said.

Wilson testified the car was dark and boxy with a Louisiana license plate. He was able to get part of the license plate number because it contained his initials, he said, and he told Holland he remembered the number eight.

The license plate on Coco's Pontiac was JUW 468.

He testified that he tried to follow the car, but the driver already had made it to I-10 by the time he got turned around. He said the driver was traveling fast, estimating about 80 or 90 mph, in the direction of Houston.

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Wilson said the man had really short hair, so short he initially thought he was bald, and was younger. He said he didn't see the man's whole face, but only a profile.

Years later, when the Alexandria Police Department assigned a new detective to the case, Wilson testified he drew a profile of the driver. He later picked Burns out of a six-person lineup presented to him by the detective.

When Holland asked him, he pointed to Burns sitting at the defense table as the man he had identified.

But while Wilson knew the near-wreck had happened during the Texas Rice Festival, he wasn't able to recall the exact date. He testified he was not good at remembering dates.

Burns' defense attorney, Christopher LaCour, questioned Wilson on that at length.

LaCour asked Wilson if he'd given three statements to law enforcement in the years since Coco's death, and he said yes. He told Wilson he never had mentioned in any of his statements remembering the number eight from the license plate.

Wilson replied he did tell that to Chambers County, but that it wasn't included in the statement he signed. LaCour then asked Wilson if he noticed the perjury notice at the bottom of the statement he signed, and Wilson said he guessed he trusted the investigators more than he should have.

LaCour hit him on several other details, which Wilson said also were not included in his statement. That led LaCour to ask Wilson if he realized Burns' life was on the line during the trial and to ask him if he was playing games.

Holland objected, calling the last statement "wildly inappropriate." LaCour withdrew it.

LaCour questioned Wilson extensively on the dates of the Texas Rice Festival, which he and another witness said was happening at the time of the near accident, and on how he could identify Burns by only seeing his profile.

Holland had previously said Wilson had a photographic memory, and LaCour called that into question because of his inability to remember dates. Wilson said he had a photographic memory when drawing.

When Holland had a chance to question Wilson again after LaCour, he asked him what mistake he had made after giving his initial statement in Chambers County. Wilson replied that he'd signed the document without reading it first.

Holland also asked Wilson if he was trying to deceive law enforcement or the jury.

"No, why would I? I'm not gaining anything," Wilson said.

Holland asked him if he understood the significance of his testimony to Burns. He said yes, and he believed people are entitled to a fair trial.

Holland then asked if that changed any of his testimony, and Wilson said no.

The other Texas resident, Janet Veyon, testified that she had known Wilson since elementary school and that he was a gifted artist who always won school contests. She said she and her husband had been in a truck with a trailer that also was almost hit by the car that Wilson swerved to avoid.

Unlike Wilson, Veyon testified she knew the incident had happened on the last night of the rice festival. Holland asked her how she knew.

She said she is the chair of the Texas Livestock Show that happens in conjunction with the festival. She said they provide a trailer for some people who need help transporting their animals, and that those animals don't leave until the last day of the festival.

She described a car that "shot out" between her truck and another car. She found out it was Wilson when he came to the sheriff's office, where she worked at the time, to give his statement.

After the lunch break, a hearing was held on what information from LSU math professor Charles Delzell should be shared with the jury. After 9th Judicial District Court Judge Mary Lauve Doggett narrowed it down, Holland asked Delzell about the probability of someone correctly naming two letters of a license plate without having knowledge of it beforehand.

Delzell said it would be less than 1%, but LaCour later asked him what he would say if the person had seen the information before being asked. Delzell said that would invalidate the findings and said his experiment had assumed the guesser had no prior knowledge.

Coco's older sister, Lace Evans, testified next. She said she and her sister both worked at the same dental office in Alexandria, but Coco had quit two days before her death.

Holland asked her how she remembered the events of the weekend her sister died. Evans said one of her fish had given birth, and she was removing them from her aquarium so the other fish wouldn't eat them. She testified she and Burns, who lived together, were arguing at the same time.

Burns left the home, came back 30 minutes to an hour later and left again. She didn't see him again until Monday afternoon when her family gathered at her mother's house after being notified of Coco's death.

Holland asked her about a promise ring that Burns bought for her, and Evans said Burns and Coco had gone together to buy it. Holland then asked her what she found when she received her sister's personal items at the funeral home.

Her voice wavering, Evans said she saw a gold ring she'd never seen her sister wear before. Holland asked if it confirmed a suspicion for her, and she said yes.

"It was a perfect wedding match" with the ring Burns had given her, she said. "It was a complete wedding set."

Evans said she had suspected the two were having an affair. She said when she was hospitalized not long before her sister's death, she noticed the two often would be gone from her room at the same time. She also testified about a call she placed to Burns that somehow was answered without him realizing it.

She said she heard her sister's voice ask who it was before the call ended.

Evans testified she was the one who noticed Coco's leopard-skin comforter missing from her bed when she came to her house weeks after her death to collect cats. She told police, she said.

Holland asked what happened years later. She said she and Burns had gotten back together for a few months, about four years after Coco's death, and he took her to see his mother.

She said his mother was sitting on a couch with a comforter that looked like Coco's, and she was sure it was her sister's because Burns' mother was a Pentecostal and wouldn't use something with a leopard-skin pattern.

Holland asked her if she ever asked Burns where he had been the weekend of her sister's death, and she said no.

LaCour asked how she never had seen Coco wear the matching ring. Evans replied that her sister wore different jewelry every day. Then he asked her if she wasn't the one who bought the rings and asked Burns to marry her.

She denied that.

The next witness was Charlene Goleman-Dyer, who gave a statement to the Alexandria Police Department about a decade before about what she claims Burns said to her.

She said he was a friend of her now ex-husband's. He spoke about a man who had shot another friend of her husband's while she was present, she testified.

Goleman-Dyer said Burns also would make comments about a trip to Texas, Coco's body being wrapped in plastic and a Ford Mustang. He was drinking, she said during LaCour's cross examination.

"He would drink and just talk," she testified. "The more he drank, the more he talked."

LaCour asked her if she knew Coco and the person Burns mentioned had dated. She said yes.

She told Holland that Burns said Coco had been choked, and she used her hands to mimic it. Holland asked her if that was her interpretation or if that's what Burns did, and she said it's what Burns did.

She said Burns told her he, the person he mentioned and that person's cousin all had sex with Coco, but all had worn condoms so they "wouldn't get in trouble."

She called police about his remarks after talking to a friend, who suggested she tell police what she knew.

Testimony will resume on Monday morning.

This article originally appeared on Alexandria Town Talk: Courtney Coco's sister testifies about comforter, ring, affair with David Burns