DAY 2: Murder trial cont. for mother and boyfriend accused of leaving 13-year-old special needs child Cristina Pangalangan in a hot car to die in Aug 2019. Presiding Judge Clifton Newman in Coll Cty.
We are now hearing from the prosecution witnesses. State's first witness is a SLED special agent who was first on the scene - she tells the jury she saw the child laying in the tall grass near the car- she had to go into the house and retrieve the mother Rita Pangalangan.
State Witness: Brittney Honeycutt says she would watch/babysit Cristina for the mother Rita Pangalangan. Honeycutt says back at the beginning of August 2019 (near the time of Cristina's hot car death) that she told Rita she could not watch her daughter because she had to go to work- but Rita told her to just "leave Cristina in the car with windows rolled down" and that "(Rita) did it all the time.”
State witness Brooklyn Molina did the prelim toxicology on Rita Pangalangan and Larry King Jr. She says both were found to have Methamphetamine and Amphetamine in their systems at the time of Cristina's death. Results confirmed by another forensic toxicologist Lisa Mitchell
Breaking for lunch now…
For the next 4 hours and 14 minutes.. the jury is instructed to watch a surveillance video of the Pangalangan car. The video begins at 11am on August 5, 2019... Judge Newman said there will be breaks when needed for jurors, but it appears the state intends to show exactly how long it felt for the girl w/ special needs to sit in the hot car with no shade before she expired.
At @ 11:16 am on the video, you see Rita Pangalangan and Larry King Jr place Cristina in the backseat of the car and shut the door. it is unclear at this point whether the car's engine is running. Rita and her boyfriend have an animated conversation on the porch for nearly 30 minutes before going in
we are back in session... a state expert testifies that the temperature outside was in the 90's the day Cristina died with high humidity- a dew point hovering 75%.
Forensic toxicologist and state witness Mitchell: It was enough Meth to still be in the bloodstream and the individual would be under the influence of the drugs.
Just had a short break during the Pangalangan/King Murder trial- an opportunity to hear Judge Clifton Newman utter the words "Bring the Jury" once more- take us straight back to the days of the Alex
#Murdaugh six week double murder trial....
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