The eighth day of the trial of Enrique Arochi, accused of kidnapping a Plano woman missing since 2014, focused on Arochi's car and recordings of police interviewing him.
Morris was last seen on surveillance video walking with Arochi into a parking garage at the Shops at Legacy in Plano early in the morning of Aug. 30, 2014.
Despite the defense's objections, the judge allowed the jury to see Arochi's Camaro in person Friday morning.
Prosecutors said that was the only sure way for the jury to tell the size of the trunk and demonstrate that Christina Morris could have fit inside it. There was extensive testimony Thursday that Morris' DNA was found in the trunk.
Prosecutors also wanted to show some damage to a front fender on Arochi's car. It's since been hammered out, so it's harder to see. But prosecutors wanted to show where it was and demonstrate its height.
Plano Police Officer Kevin Sasso, who works on accident reconstructions, testified that the damage would be consistent with hitting something soft, like a person's hips or buttocks.
Arochi told conflicting stories about how that damage happened and several people testified it showed up after Morris disappeared.
Local
The latest news from around North Texas.
Arochi initially told police that he dented it by punching it in frustration when he hurt himself while rotating his tires. But Officer Sasso testified that was impossible and that it didn't come from a collision either because there was no paint damage.
The jury also heard testimony from a botanist talking about some long grasses that were found caught underneath Arochi's car when police seized it.
The botanist said that one of the grasses is generally only found in wet, low-lying areas, usually near water.
He added that a car would likely have to drive off-road to get that kind of grass caught under it. However, the jury didn't hear that testimony because the defense argued it could be misleading without other evidence to back that up.
In the afternoon, Plano Police Detective Cathy Stamm testified about her first interviews with Arochi and prosecutors played recordings of those interviews.
In the recordings, Arochi says he only walked with Christina Morris to the end of the apartment complex where they'd been hanging out with mutual friends.
Arochi said they then split up and went separate ways because they were parked in different garages. Police say he later changed his story when surveillance photos showed the pair walking into the garage together.
Arochi is also shown telling Detective Stamm that Morris was on the phone with someone "talking loudly" and that he was on the phone with his girlfriend while walking with Morris. But cell phone records disproved that.
In the recordings, Arochi appears calm and agrees to let investigators search his car. Detective Stamm testified she knew he had already washed his car before they had a chance to search it.
In later recordings, Arochi broke down crying as police continuned to push him for answers about the injuries to his hands and arms and said they didn't believe that he punched his car. Arochi is heard saying, "This is so stressful."
Police say the next time they went to talk to him he didn't answer the door and never provided the information they were asking him for about his injuries.
The jury also heard emotional testimony from Christina Morris' stepmother Anna Morris. Morris cried as she told police that Christina would never have walked alone and that when Arochi said she had walked off by herself that night, "That's when it felt like something was really, really wrong."
Anna Morris also cried as she told the jury that Arochi never came back to look for Christina, like all the other friends who were out that night did.
Tweets about from @alicebarrnbc5 AND #arochitrial
// <![CDATA[ !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+"://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); // ]]>Day 7
Investigators testified Thursday morning about possible blood evidence obtained from the trunk of Arochi's Camaro. The defense questioned the validity of the samples taken.
DNA expert Christina Capt, of the UNT Center for Human Identification, said she took DNA samples from Morris' parents and from a soda can in Morris' car and matched them to DNA found on a mat Arochi's car. Capt testified that the likelihood the DNA from the trunk mat is not Christina Morris is 1 in 1.7 quintillion, a 1 followed by 18 zeroes.
Capt also testified about hairs she tested that were pulled from a vacuum at Arochi's place of work. She said the hairs were not a match for Christina Morris.
The defense argued the DNA could have been transferred through touch, but Capt testified the concentration of DNA in the trunk mat samples made it much more likely that it was from a bodily fluid.
Day 6
Rand Aridi testified Wednesday that she was dating Arochi at the time of Morris' disappearance. According to text message records, Arochi told Aridi he had a headache the night Morris disappeared and was going to sleep. Arochi was actually with a group of friends, including Morris.
Aridi also said she and Arochi went to the Shops at Legacy for dinner the next day and he never told her he'd been there the night before. She said he had cuts on his knuckles and told her a tire fell on his hand while he was fixing it. Witnesses testified Tuesday that Arochi claimed the cuts came from a fight.
Prosecutors showed evidence a Plano police officer pulled from Arochi's trash that included black gorilla tape and empty bottles of cleaning products. The officer also found a Post-It note in the trash with the following bullet points written on it:
- Black shirt
- texts from 29-today's date
- bank bills
- cellular bills
Defense attorneys pointed out Arochi could have been making a list of evidence to gather to defend himself and show his innocence.
Day 5
Defense attorneys questioned Plano Det. Aaron Benzick Tuesday, who laid out his theory that Morris was not kidnapped in the parking garage, but rather after she willingly got into Arochi's Camaro. He testified something happened after they left that made Morris change her mind about being in Arochi's car and he believes that's when things went wrong.
Prosecutors also heard testimony from Morris' boyfriend, Hunter Foster, who discussed text messages between the two the night she went missing. Foster struck an immunity agreement for his testimony in exchange for a suspended sentence on a drug charge. He said he was never near Morris the night she disappeared.
Day 4
Arochi's former co-workers at Sprint testified Tuesday, describing Arochi's strange behavior the day after Morris disappeared.
"He had a bite mark on his arm," one former co-worker, Jacob Talamontes, told NBC 5. "He told me his rim fell on him while he was changing a tire. He told two other co-workers that he got into a fight at the Shops at Legacy."
Talamontes was reprimanded by the judge Wednesday for speaking with the media.
Day 3
On Monday, attorneys looked at the cell phone records of Arochi and Foster.
Days 1 and 2
Friends who were with Morris and Arochi the night Morris went missing testified last week that they didn't recall seeing cuts on Arochi's hands or damage to his car, both of which appeared the next day.
NBC 5's Chris Jose and Alice Barr contributed to this report.
