Man Found Guilty Of Silver Comet Murder
DALLAS — Michael Ledford was found guilty Monday of murdering Jennifer Ewing on the Silver Comet Trail, with jurors taking less than 90 minutes to reach their decision.
The jury found Ledford guilty of: malice murder, two counts of felony murder, three counts of aggravated battery, aggravated sodomy, two counts of kidnapping with bodily injury and aggravated assault.
Monday morning, the 10 men and two women on the jury heard closing arguments.
After being charged by the judge, the jurors began deliberations. Less than 90 minutes later they sent word through a bailiff that they had reached a verdict.
Ledford, 46, now faces a second trial to set his punishment: death, life without parole or life with the possibility of parole.
JURY VISITED ATTACK SCENE
The jury in the case visited the scene of the attack Friday afternoon.
Prosecutors asked the judge to allow the jury to make the trip to the spot where Jennifer Ewing was sexually assaulted and killed in 2006.
Defense attorneys for defendant Michael Ledford objected, but after Paulding County Superior Court Judge James Osborne visited the trail on Thursday evening, he approved the visit.
The jury traveled to the Silver Comet Trail together by bus, then hiked through a wooded area to the scene of the attack.
On Friday morning, the woman Ledford was convicted of raping in 1991 testified.
“I can’t do this,” she sobbed on the stand, 18 years after Ledford assaulted her while walking through some woods.
“He grabbed me with his arm over my neck, put his other arm on this arm and laid me down in the woods,” she said.
She said after the attack Ledford asked her for a cigarette and made small talk, then allowed her to go home.
“I thought maybe he’d kill me, but I just wanted to go home,” she said on the stand.
Ledford, who served ten years in prison for that attack, did not look at the woman while she testified.
On Wednesday, testimony in the murder trial had many of the victim’s family members leave the courthouse and jurors at times looking away.
The state’s chief medical examiner spent hours testifying about Jennifer Ewing’s injuries. GBI Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Kris Sperry said Ewing was beaten and kicked so severely, she couldn’t move or breathe.
“In my opinion, Jennifer Ewing died of asphyxiation or suffocation as a consequence of multiple, severe, crushing injuries of the chest,” said Sperry.
The state’s chief medical examiner took jurors through Ewing’s painful ordeal in a clinical fashion.
The accused killer Ledford mostly stared straight ahead as Sperry narrated photographs taken of the 53-year-old mother of three after her death. The pictures were graphic and disturbing.
“I would characterize this as a very severe beating,” said Sperry.
Ewing had severe injuries from the top of her head to her feet. Sperry said he knew Ewing fought back because there were a lot of defensive wounds.
As they went step by step, the prosecutor asked Sperry to keep track of the number of times he thought the victim had been hit or stomped.
“I would say, realistically somewhere between five and 10 separate blows to the front of the upper face,” said Sperry.
He gave his opinion on the number of blows for each picture they went over. His other answers included, “A minimum of probably about 18 to 20.”
“Approximately five to six.”
“I would say at least 15 to 20.”
But perhaps most disturbing of all, Sperry testified after her beating, Ewing died a relatively slow and painful death in the kudzu along the Silver Comet Trail.
“She was alive for perhaps 15 to 30 minutes afterwards and died because of lack of oxygen,” said Sperry.
Ledford’s attorneys objected constantly throughout the graphic testimony and the pictures Wednesday. Prosecutors said it was necessary for jurors to hear what happened to Ewing along the trail.
Copyright 2009 by WSBTV.com.
