Wesley Hadsell declines to testify in his own defense at murder trial for death of adopted daughter

The defense in the Wesley Hadsell murder trial rested Thursday after calling five brief witnesses to testify.

Hadsell — who is accused of killing his 18-year-old adopted daughter in 2015 and then dumping her body behind an abandoned house — didn’t take the witness stand. When defense attorney James Ellenson asked him to state on the record whether he planned to testify in his own defense, Hadsell paused for several seconds before saying he didn’t.

Hadsell, 43, is charged with first-degree murder, non capital murder and concealing a dead body.

Much of the testimony of witnesses called on by the defense focused on the comings and goings of Hadsell on the day his daughter, Anjelica “A.J.” Hadsell, disappeared.

A.J. Hadsell was a freshman at Longwood University and spending her spring break at her family’s home in Norfolk when she disappeared in March 2015. Her body wasn’t found until five weeks later, behind a house in Southampton County near the North Carolina border.

Wesley Hadsell wasn’t charged in the case until 2018. His first trial in 2020 was declared a mistrial over a disagreement about what evidence the jury should be allowed to hear.

The trial is in the second week of testimony. Commonwealth’s Attorney Eric Cooke said he plans to call rebuttal witnesses on Friday but didn’t indicate how many. Closing arguments are expected to begin Monday.

Among the witnesses called Thursday was a neighbor of the Hadsell family who said he saw a white compact car pull into their driveway sometime between 12:30 p.m. and 1 p.m. the day A.J. Hadsell disappeared. The time is important because that’s when prosecutors have said Wesley Hadsell was seen on a convenience store’s surveillance footage driving in his work van towards the house.

Also called by the defense on Thursday was A.J. Hadsell’s friend Dustyn Brinkley. Brinkley said he saw A.J. driving Wesley Hadsell’s pickup not far from her home the afternoon she disappeared. But when a prosecutor told Brinkley his cell phone data showed he was in Virginia Beach that afternoon, he said he may have been wrong about the date.

Former Norfolk Police Department homicide detective Joshua Hathaway told jurors on Monday that surveillance footage from a 7-Eleven near A.J.’s home showed Wesley Hadsell’s work truck driving in the direction of her house at 12:16 p.m. the day she disappeared. It was seen driving in the direction away from the house at 1:27 p.m. FBI agent Albert Sena testified that GPS data recovered from Hadsell’s work van showed it drove to the house where A.J.’s body was found two days after she went missing and stayed there 22 minutes before driving away.

Willie Whitehead, who lived near the location where A.J.’s body was found, testified about seeing a van different from the one Hadsell drove pulling into the property, but he wasn’t sure when that happened.

The last defense witness was Josh Campbell, who was dating A.J. at the time of her death.

In response to Ellenson’s questions about whether text messages between Campbell and A.J. indicated they were broken up at the time she disappeared, Campbell said they were “taking a break.”

A.J. was away at college and busy with her studies and club sports and he was busy with work, he said, but they still communicated frequently. They planned to go to a hockey game and shopping while she was home on break, he said.

Text messages read by the prosecutor showed that in the days leading up to A.J.’s disappearance, Campbell usually ended their evening conversations by wishing her “sweet dreams.” After she went missing, he continued texting her, saying, “I hope you’re ok. I love you.”

“You did it over and over, hoping for a response?” Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Toni Colvin asked Campbell. “Yes, ma’am,” he responded.

Earlier this week, Corey French, a friend of A.J.’s testified about police finding a windbreaker that belonged to A.J. in his house. French said he’d never seen it before and didn’t know how it got there. Prosecutors read a transcript of an interview Hadsell gave to a local TV station in which he admitted to breaking into French’s home but denied “planting” the jacket there.

Ellenson ended his case Thursday by showing the jury several images with captions from the tumblr social networking website that had been downloaded to A.J.’s phone shortly before she went missing that might suggest she was depressed or suicidal.

Earlier this week, former Gov. Ralph Northam, who is also pediatric neurologist, testified he treated A.J. for migraines for years. Northam told jurors A.J. was a “great kid” and he didn’t believe she was depressed or suicidal.

Jane Harper, 757-222-5097, jane.harper@pilotonline.com