AUSTIN, Texas — First responders and investigators took the stand during the second day of the capital murder trial of Shane James, the man charged in a Central Texas shooting spree that resulted in the death of six people in December 2023.
Friday morning, testimony focused on the crime scene on Shadywood Drive in South Austin, where two people, Sabrina Rahman and Emmanuel Pop Ba, were fatally shot just before noon on Dec. 5.
Prosecutors called nine witnesses to the stand, including a paramedic, forensic scientists, a medical examiner and a detective.
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Jordan Malone, a paramedic with Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Services, said he arrived on scene around noon to find the two victims lying on the ground and not moving. He said EMS was able to return a pulse to Rahman on scene before intubating her and putting her in an ambulance.
Malone said he would later respond to another connected scene on Austral Loop that evening.
Jasmin Arevalo, a forensic scientist for the City of Austin, took photo evidence of the scene, which prosecutors presented to the jury. Among the photos were shell casings left behind from the shooting, which matched the casings found on the scene of the shooting at Northeast Early College High School that morning. Another photo showed an abandoned stroller down the street from where Rahman, a young mother, was fighting for her life.
Prosecutors said Thursday that James shot Pop Ba and stole his vehicle, then stopped several houses down to shoot Rahman.
Security footage presented to the court showed a man walking through the Shadywood neighborhood in the minutes leading up to the shooting. Another clip from a home security camera appeared to show the street at the moment of the shootings. In the clip, a green SUV appears to speed off, then stop a few houses down before a person gets out, runs out of frame, and gets back in the car.
Another clip taken from Shadywood Drive shows the SUV turning around seconds later with a shattered passenger window. An Austin police officer testified that officers later found the SUV in the parking lot of a nearby bank.
A deputy medical examiner analyzed autopsy photos that showed gunshot wounds to the heads of Rahman and Pop Ba.
The Travis County trial is expected to continue on Monday morning.