Jury in Ibraheem Yazeed capital murder trial completes day of deliberations without reaching verdict
Jury deliberations started this morning in Macon County in the capital murder trial of Ibraheem Yazeed, who is charged in the shooting death of 19-year-old college student Aniah Blanchard in 2019.
He faces two counts of capital murder as well as several lesser charges.
Deliberations started at 9:30AM. The jury paused at 11:30AM and again around 3:30PM to ask questions. They also spent about 75 minutes on a lunch break.
The question at 3:30PM was regarding the difference between felony murder and murder.
Many people in the courtroom wore blue or blue ribbons in memory of Blanchard. During the lunch break today, both Angela Harris and Mike Harris, the mother and stepfather of Blanchard, along with her brother Elijah and other friends were seen taking photos together before court resumed.
Yazeed’s family was also present in the courtroom today as well.
The jury will resume deliberations tomorrow morning.
Blanchard was seen on surveillance video inside a Chevron gas station on South College Street in Auburn the night she disappeared in October 2019. Her car was discovered in Montgomery, while her body was found in a wooded area in Macon County about a month after she vanished. The medical examiner said she had been shot in the head.
In closing arguments, prosecutors told jurors that from when Blanchard’s car was last seen on video getting onto Interstate 85 in Auburn to the time her body was dumped in a wooded area in Macon County that they have heard evidence to know she was killed, that she was shot inside her car due to the presence of blood and that her body was thrown into the woods.
The defense told the jury that prosecutors created more questions than answers, saying they were not able to tie any witness testimony to Yazeed other than the accounts of two convicted felons, texts from Blanchard’s phone to a roommate about smoking with a person named “Eric” and a short video. The defense also said there was no DNA evidence in the car tying Yazeed to it.
The defense told their jury that instead of capital murder, it could decide to convict Yazeed of felony murder or manslaughter instead.
