OCT 4, 2022
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Long was one of at least nine witnesses to take the stand Tuesday, including a 14-year-old who said Stallworth, 42, approached her earlier that Saturday, Oct. 12, 2019, and offered her candy.
Other witnesses included a neighbor of Stallworth who said he had been confronted multiple times about offering candy to children in the Center Point apartment complex where he lived.
A woman also said she confronted Stallworth and his girlfriend, Derick Brown, because they were parked in front of her home where her own children usually played.
Evidence presented to the jury included a bloodstained plastic mattress covering taken from Stallworth and Brown’s apartment, as well as a store receipt showing Stallworth had bought $18.91 worth of candy from the Shell service station near Tom Brown Village.
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Stallworth’s lawyer, Birmingham attorney Derrick Collins, during cross examination, said that Stallworth bought a lot of candy because he was trying to quit smoking.
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FBI Special Agent Jonathan Spaeth, who is based out of Missouri, is on the FBI’s Child Abduction Rapid Deployment team and was sent to Birmingham on Oct. 14, 2019, to join in the search for Cupcake.
He, along with several Birmingham police detectives, interviewed Stallworth who told them he and Brown were at Tom Brown Village so that Brown could talk to the father of her children. At that point, Brown did not have custody of any of her six kids.
Stallworth told investigators he got out of the SUV to walk around because he didn’t get along with the man Brown was going to talk to and he didn’t want to get into a fight with him.
While he was walking around, Stallworth said, he encountered what is believed to be Cupcake and Ava, and said they were playing with a mouse trap that contained a mouse.
Stallworth said he told the children, “Nah, don’t play with that,” and offered them some Now and Later candy, which again he said he had because he was trying to quit smoking.
That encounter was captured on the video surveillance system from a home that backs up to Tom Brown Village. The encounter took place at 8:02 p.m., which is when authorities believe Cupcake was abducted.
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