Follow Domingo Ramirez Jr.'s reports live from the courthouse on Twitter.
5:07 p.m. UPDATE:
First day of testimony in the trial of Jeff Maxwell, 59, accused of stringing up a 62-year-old Parker County woman on a deer rack and torturing her over 12 days in Corsicana, has ended. The trial resumes Wednesday.
2:35 p.m. UPDATE:
Jurors got their first look at the Corsicana home and garage of Jeff Maxwell Tuesday afternoon as a prosecutor showed them photographs taken by investigators.
Maxwell is accused stringing up a 62-year-old Parker County woman on a deer rack and torturing her over 12 days.
The garage photos showed the homemade deer rack and winch that had a blood-stained control panel.
There were also women's clothes and whips in the garage.
Photos inside his home showed handcuffs, sex toys and stained sheets and a comforter.
Maxwell showed no emotion as the jury viewed the photos.
One photo of the bedroom revealed a chain locked to a bed. The Parker County woman had told investigators she was kept handcuffed to the bed during the 12 days she was kept in Maxwell's home.
12:30 p.m. UPDATE:
Parker County jurors sat in silence Tuesday morning as they listened to a taped interivew of a woman who authorities say was kidnapped and sexually tortured telling investigators she was “scared to death” during her ordeal.
The jury listened to the interview of the 62-year-old woman by an investigator just minutes after she was found in a Corsicana home on March 12.
She blamed others for hiring Jeff Maxwell to abduct and kill her. In a later interview in a Navarro County jail, Maxwell told investigators he was paid $2,500 to get rid of her.
No one else has been charged in the case.
Jurors also heard Maxwell tell authorities that he hadn't seen the woman in years. That interview was recoded by authorities when they went to Maxwell's Corsicana home to interview him about the missing woman.
Minutes after investigators arrived at his home and as they were talking to Maxwell, the woman walked out the front door and said, "I'm here."
11:10 a.m. UPDATE:
A Coriscana man sprayed his vicitm in the face, beat her with a rolling pin and then used shackles during his attack on her in March at her Parker County home, a prosecutor said Tuesday.
In her struggle with the attacker, the woman yelled, "I have AIDS!" to get him to stop but he didn't.
When she escaped from her home, Jeffrey Maxwell, 59, caught up with her, pointed a gun at her and shoved her into his vehicle.
Parker County assistant district attorney Kathleen Catania told the 14-member jury in Maxwell's trial Tuesday that Maxwell then drove her to his Corsicana home and beat and sexually tortured her for 12 days in March.
Maxwell pleaded not guilty Tuesday morning to two counts of aggravated sexual assault and kidnapping.
His defense attorneys gave no opening statements.
10:27 a.m.:
Attorneys for Jeff Maxwell, accused of using a homemade deer rack in his garage to sexually torture a 62-year-old woman over a 12-day period, gave no opening statements Tuesday as his trial on two counts of sexual assault and aggravated kidnapping got under way in Weatherford.
Maxwell, 59, of Corsicana pleaded not guilty.
In their opening arguments, prosecutors said Maxwell kidnapped a woman from her Parker County home, took her to Corsicana, strung her up naked to the deer rack and beat, whipped and sexually tortured her while holding her hostage for 12 days.
The woman, who has not been identified, was in the Parker County Courthouse for the trial Tuesday.
Prosecutors also said that she lived a simple life in Parker County and said she was a virgin before Maxwell abducted her.
(Photo of Maxwell arriving in court by Ron T. Ennis/Star-Telegram)
He's an absolutely vile disgusting creature. Please don't put any more pictures of him in the ST, unless it is of him strung up on a deer rack and gutted.
Posted by: Hershey | February 14, 2012 at 06:39 PM
There is only one solution for this guy's problem. A box of popcorn, a coke, and a tall tree with a short rope attached to it.
Posted by: JohnQ | February 15, 2012 at 01:12 PM