Prosecutors rested their case Wednesday after painting a history of abuse in the trial of a Lake Charles man accused in the 2014 beating death of his girlfriend.
Mario Jamal Viltz, 36, is charged with the second-degree murder of A’Tasha LaShawn Hardy, 25. Hardy was found seriously injured in her Anita Drive home Oct. 30, 2014, and died from her injuries the next day.
Witnesses on Wednesday said they saw Hardy with a black eye on more than one occasion during her relationship with Viltz, including within weeks of her death.
“It wasn’t my business,” said neighbor Louis Miles when asked if he ever inquired about it.
Hardy’s aunt, Joan Johnson, said her niece had told her Viltz had caused the injuries. “She wasn’t seeing no one else but him,” she said.
Johnson said she called and texted Viltz on Oct. 30. She said he had texted “I didn’t touch that girl” to her. Johnson said he had also called her and told her that he had left Hardy at “12 o’clock that night.” Prosecutors entered into evidence a picture of the text messages.
Amie Dillon, who lived next door to Hardy, said she often heard the couple arguing. She said that a few months before Hardy’s death Viltz deliberately started an argument with Hardy in front of his friends at Hardy’s home.
But during the late-night hours of Oct. 29, she said, “the noise was different.”
“I heard her screaming, ‘Help! Help!’ ” said Dillon. It was the first time she said that she had heard Hardy say that.
Titus Trimm, the father of Hardy’s three children, said he had previous altercations with her, including one in Morgan City that led to jail time for domestic abuse. Also, Trimm said, in May 2012 he was charged with simple property damage for kicking out a police car window in front of Hardy’s Anita Drive home.
Trimm said the incident was “a misunderstanding” between the two regarding their children.
Viltz’s attorney, John Coffman, asked Trimm about the original report on the incident. Trimm said the police said he had put his hands on her neck, but he denied that.
He said their relationship ended sometime in 2012 and that he only went to Hardy’s home for his children during the daytime. He later referred to her as “a damn good mother.”
When asked about Oct. 29, 2014, Trimm denied being at Hardy’s home that night, saying he only spoke to her over the phone that day about taking the children trick-or-treating.
He said that after he left work — his time card showed that to be after 7 p.m. — he picked up his girlfriend, Brittany Trent, from her job. He said they went home and that he didn’t leave until the next morning. Trent testified later to the same sequence of events.
Trimm said he didn’t see Hardy again until he visited her in the hospital on Oct. 30 and 31.
Calcasieu Parish Coroner Dr. Terry Welke said Hardy’s cause of death was “multiple blunt force injuries to the head and abdomen.” Pictures of Hardy were shown to jurors as Welke detailed her injuries: bruising on her brain, both arms, the base of her skull and her legs; scrapes on her neck and behind her ears; lacerations on her forehead and lip; and blood in her abdomen from a torn liver.
Prosecutors asked Welke if an end table could have caused her injuries. He said it could have. Coffman asked Welke if he could determine the age of the bruises. Welke said he couldn’t pinpoint their relative ages, only that Hardy suffered them while she was alive.
When asked about the bruising of the brain, Welke said it was there the whole time she was in the hospital.
The trial will continue today, with the defense calling witnesses. The jury is expected to deliberate soon afterward.
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