BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (AP) — Jurors are being chosen for a third trial of a Connecticut man charged with killing and dismembering his college student girlfriend after she broke up with him.
The first two trials of Jermaine Richards ended in mistrials after the juries deadlocked. Jury selection in the third trial resumed for a second day Friday in Bridgeport Superior Court.
The 34-year-old Richards is charged with murder in the 2013 death of Alyssiah Wiley, of West Haven. He denies the allegations.
Wiley was a 20-year-old sophomore psychology major at Eastern Connecticut State University in Willimantic. She was last seen with Richards outside her dorm. Her dismembered remains were found a month later in a wooded area in Trumbull, not far from Richards’ home in Bridgeport.
Police said Wiley tried to break up with Richards via Facebook shortly before her death and he became upset.
Afterward, Richards told a friend that Wiley “doesn’t know who she’s messing with” and that he was “going to get rid of her,” police said in the arrest warrant affidavit for Richards.
Police said they searched Richards’ home and found two DVDs that depict human dismemberment — “Absolute Death and other Strange Occurrences” and “Death: the Final Journey, volume five,” according to search warrant affidavits
Authorities also found an empty garbage bag box, five rolls of duct tape and pants with bleach-like stains at Richards’ home, police said. Authorities searched Richards’ car and said they found latex gloves, balled-up duct tape mixed with hair and paper-towel-like material and plastic bags, according to the affidavits.
Prosecutors have relied on circumstantial evidence since police did not recover a murder weapon and there were no witnesses to Wiley’s death.
The jury is scheduled to begin hearing evidence Sept. 5.
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