Live updates: Travis Rudolph testifies at murder trial that he 'had every right' to defend self

WEST PALM BEACH — Day eight of the murder trial of former Florida State University football player Travis Rudolph took place Monday, with the defense continuing to present its case.

Rudolph took the stand in his own defense Monday afternoon, and the state rested its case shortly after 4 p.m. The jury could begin its deliberations as early as Tuesday morning.

Attorneys for both sides presented opening statements May 31, one casting Rudolph as the aggressor and the other insisting he was a victim. Rudolph, who played briefly in the NFL, is charged with murder and three counts of attempted murder in connection with a fatal shooting outside his Lake Park home two years ago.

Four men appeared on Rudolph's doorstep shortly after midnight on April 7, 2021, to confront him about a dispute he had with his girlfriend hours earlier. The confrontation turned violent, Rudolph said, and he armed himself with a rifle.

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Investigators with the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office say the men were trying to flee in a black Cadillac when Rudolph fired 39 rounds in their direction, killing Sebastien Jean-Jacques in the passenger seat.

Rudolph asked Circuit Judge Jeffrey Gillen to dismiss the case last year on the basis of Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law, which permits the use of deadly force to protect against death or great bodily harm. Gillen denied his request, leaving jurors to decide whether Rudolph ended Jean-Jacques' life to save his own.

Follow along for live updates from inside the courtroom, where the proceedings resumed at 10 a.m. Monday.

Was Dominique Jones' Travis Rudolph's girlfriend? Testimony gets testy

In his testimony, Travis Rudolph, now 27, denied that Dominique Jones — the woman with whom he had the confrontation that led to the brawl in front of his home — was his "official girlfriend."

Rudolph defined the fine-line relationship, saying he "definitely had a lot of love for her" but said he saw himself as "a single man." The two texted and spoke frequently, but in the months before the shooting, Rudolph said his focus was on rehabilitating an injured knee.

"I was actually taking my time," he said of his intention to evaluate his relationship with Jones and his future plans. He said the two had not spoken about marriage, but had talked about children

His goal, he said, was to be able to join a Canadian Football League team with the ultimate goal of returning to the National Football League, where he had formerly played for the New York Giants and had injured the knee in a workout with the Miami Dolphins.

In cross-examination, prosecutor Francine Edwards pointedly challenged Rudolph's assertions. She noted Jones spent plenty of time at the Lake Park home and the two "exchanged I love yous." She repeatedly stated in questioning that Rudolph had cheated on Jones. Rudolph pushed back on the claim.

Edwards asked rhetorically whether that meant he could "screw" anyone, eliciting gasps from the gallery.

"That's cold," one audience member said from the back row. Courtroom deputies warned against further outbursts, and Gillen ordered a sidebar with the attorneys.

Travis Rudolph: I 'had every right' to defend against attackers

Taking the stand in his own defense, Travis Rudolph insisted he feared for his life when he opened fire on the Cadillac that held four men who had just beaten him and his brother following a domestic dispute hours earlier.

"I'm not guilty," he said. "Because I was saving my and my brother's life."

In detail, Travis described the moments before he opened fire. As both his mother and brother previously testified, he said he stepped out his mother's Lake Park house after four men showed up and banged on the door.

One of the men, he said, was Dominque Jones' brother, Keishaun, and Rudolph said he sought to engage him in conversation. That was when he said he was "sucker-punched" near his left eye. That started a brawl, he said, in which he and his brother were alternately punched and kicked by the four men.

"They were there to hurt us," Travis recalled. "I took it as they were there to kill us."

At one point, he said, he was out of breath after being choked. But the situation, he testified, took an even more dangerous turn when one of the four men, amid the brawl, brandished a weapon.

At that point, Rudolph said, he went back into the house to retrieve his own firearm.

Two of the attackers at that point had moved away toward a car. But Rudolph noticed his brother down the street and potentially in danger. He said he moved between his brother and the vehicle when he noticed the car moving toward him, and two of the occupants pointing guns at him.

That, he said, is when he opened fire.

In cross-examination, prosecutor Francine Edwards sought to sow doubt in Rudolph's testimony, which led to some testy exchanges.

Edwards sharply questioned Rudolph's decision-making, pointing out that video evidence does not show any of the four men involved in the fight carrying weapons. Instead, Edwards said it was Rudolph who escalated the violence by bring an "assault rifle to a fistfight."

Edwards also asked Rudolph how he could see the men aiming firearms at him from a car with tinted windows in a dark section of the street. Rudolph insisted he did.

She also sought to undermine Rudolph's version of events showing a video showing, she said, that the car was actually moving backward at the moment Rudolph opened fire. Rudolph said the camera angle was off, and that he had a different vantage point.

Travis Rudolph: A date night with UNO and tequila shots turns 'horrible'

Travis Rudolph recalled that what began as a date evening playing the UNO card game and drinking shots of Patron tequila turned ugly after Jones went through his phone.

At the time, Travis Rudolph said he had gone outside to talk to his brother, Darryl. When he returned, Jones' mood had turned angry. "I could tell she was mad," he said.

Jones had spotted a text conversation between Rudolph and a woman named Kayla, who he had met in Tallahassee. Jones Facetimed Kayla from Rudolph's phone and the woman and Rudolph chatted while Jones, holding the phone to hide herself from Kayla's view, overheard their conversation.

Jones then threw the iPhone on the ground, cracking the screen and damaging it to the point it was not operable, Rudolph said. She also began hitting him, Rudolph said, but he deflected her blows as the two yelled "horrible things" at each other.

In the living room, Rudolph said Jones also threw his PlayStation 4 game console on the floor. She took the bottle of tequila as she left the household, Rudolph testified, and the aggressive dispute continued outside. Rudolph said Jones hit him with the bottle before getting in her car and driving away.

Prosecutors challenge Travis' mother, Linda Rudolph, in pointed cross-examination

In cross-examination, Chief Assistant State Attorney Adrienne Ellis scrutinized four aspects of the testimony of Linda Rudolph, Travis' mother, who lived in the Lake Park home with him.

First, Ellis noted that at one point the violence seemed to have abated, citing a video clip from one of the surveillance cameras that showed the men standing outside and apparently talking without incident. But Linda said that camera only captured a snippet — "just a glimpse," she called it — and that the brawl was ongoing away from the lens.

Ellis also parsed her words to Travis — "No, Travis, no" — when he brandished the weapon. Prosecutors said her statement to her son suggested she knew the level of danger did not rise to the need for a firearm. But Linda said that when she pleaded with Travis about the weapon, she did not know that the men were still attacking his brother, Darryl Rudolph, and that his life was in peril.

In cross-examination, Linda was repeatedly pressed on why, if fearing for her family, she had gone into the house when she saw Travis in possession of the firearm. For that matter, why hadn't she called law enforcement once inside? Or, even, gone to one of her neighbors to ask them to call?

Linda responded that she was "traumatized" and was struggling to enter the pass code on her cellphone. In fear and shock, it didn't occur to her to use the landline, a phone she rarely used, she added. And to have gone to her neighbors at that late hour, she said. would have been "disrespectful."

Ellis then pointedly questioned Linda as to why she didn't give her version of events to law-enforcement officers at the scene, and in the subsequent months and years since the shooting. Ellis noted she declined to speak to the police responding to the scene that night unless she had a lawyer present.

Neither, the state said, did she ever seek out a meeting with them or law-enforcement officials to tell her side of the story.

Linda said she believed investigators already knew the full story about what occurred that night at her home. She also said she expected they would seek her out when necessary, but that outreach never took place.

After cross-examination, her attorney asked Linda if she had ever been served a subpoena or was asked to sit for a deposition. "No," she responded.

Linda Rudolph said she exclaimed 'No, Travis, no' when he got a firearm

At alternating points in the brawl, Linda Rudolph said she lost track of her sons as the men piled on both Travis and Darryl Rudolph, and she repeatedly sought to explain that it was Dominique Jones who had been the aggressor earlier in the evening.

At one point, she said, Travis "broke free" and then emerged from the house with a firearm.

"I said, 'No, Travis, no,' " Linda Rudolph said. She said Travis told her, referring to Darryl: "He got my bro, ma. They got DJ. They got DJ."

She said Travis then told her to go into the house. While in the house, she said she was fumbling with her phone, trying to enter the pass code when she heard shots fired.

She testified that Travis and Darryl then came into the house and they huddled in shock.

" 'Ma, I thought my life was going to be over,' " she said Travis told her.

Linda then said she heard police sirens and later a helicopter. When police called for him to exit the home, Travis went outside, followed by Darryl, before she was then asked to leave the house. By the time she ventured out to the front lawn, she said Travis had been handcuffed and was in a patrol vehicle.

"I was in shock," she recalled. "I was traumatized."

Linda Rudolph's testimony followed Darryl Rudolph's version

Linda Rudolph said she was "upset" after the call from Dominique Jones, and she returned to her Lake Park house immediately from her sister's home.

Once there, she was speaking with her sons when they heard "bam, bam, bam" — loud banging on the front door. Outside, she said, four to five men were on her front lawn demanding to see Travis Rudolph in threatening tones.

"I was scared," she recalled from the witness stand. "I was in fear."

Linda Rudolph said she told the men that this was "my house" and they had to leave, even saying law enforcement was on the way. "I didn't want no one to get hurt or anything," she said.

Still, they demanded to see Travis, and when the former star football player emerged from the house, one of the men "sucker-punched him," Linda Rudolph stated. Rudolph then said a "brawl" ensued as the men attacked both Travis and her other son, Darryl.

Linda Rudolph insisted she tried repeatedly to "de-escalate" the fight, but none of the men battering her sons would listen to her, she added.

Night started with Bible study before phone call from Dominique Jones

Linda Rudolph testified she had gone to her sister's for Bible study early on the evening of April 6. Afterward, she said, they watched a movie.

Later in the evening, Linda said she got a call from an angry Dominque Jones. Linda Rudolph said Jones was "screaming and hollering," Linda said, adding that Jones added her brother and friends were "going to f*** him up."

Linda said she "had always treated her like my child" in speaking about Jones, but had only met Jones' mother and brother on fewer than a handful of occasions.

"I really had a lot of love for her," Linda said of Jones.

Defense calls Linda Rudolph, Travis Rudolph's mother, as a witness

Monday's proceedings began with Rudolph's defense team calling Linda Rudolph, Travis Rudolph's mother, as a witness.

She testified that she secured her home with three extra surveillance cameras in addition to the six she already had after the "accidental" shooting death of her husband in 2017. She said the loss of her husband accentuated her fears about security

"I was really by myself," she testified.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Travis Rudolph murder trial: Former FSU football star testifies in defense