Whether or not it matters, Collin was actually quite a bit shorter than the male attorney who served as co-counsel on his case and that attorney didn't look like he was particularly tall. I didn't get any particular impression that Collin was a big kid, not that the mother was exactly the incredible hulk either.
This kid just had a public defender. She put on a very low-key case but was able to establish through thorough crosses of prosecution investigators and by calling one witness, Collin's maternal grandmother, to the stand, that Cathy had, in the past, exhibited a clear pattern of threatening, abusive, volatile and aggressive behaviors including threatening Collin and other people in Collin's presence with weapons. The grandmother's testimony was corroborated by some facts that weren't in dispute; Cathy had been convicted previously of threatening Collin's father with a gun and in the presence of Collin. Collin and Cathy's other child had both repeatedly been removed from Cathy's custody by Florida's DCF.
It was established that Collin had made multiple attempts to remove himself from Cathy's home. He had reported abuse by her to school authorities, he had asked law enforcement to remove him, he had repeatedly run away to his grandmother's house. But Florida DCF workers continued to automatically believe Cathy's claims that Collin was lying and failed to investigate. Collin was continuously returned by authorities to Cathy.
The prosecutor WAS allowed to tell jurors Collin had killed previously and by firing two shots. The ONLY info the jury wasn't given was the relationship between Collin and the decedent. They didn't know the previous victim was Collin's father. The jury wasn't sequestered.
The defense left open the question of what exactly happened the day Cathy was killed but took the position Cathy was the primary aggressor. Collin didn't take the stand.
www.lcnok.com
