AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) – A judge denied a motion for a mistrial in the case of two parents charged in the murder of a 16-year-old daughter.

With Day 6 of Leon and Tanya Tripp’s murder trial underway Monday, the judge ordered a five-minute recess after the ruling before bringing in the jury for proceedings to resume.

Testimony lasted until late afternoon, when the jury was released and told to return at 9:15 a.m. Tuesday.

Why mistrial was denied

The judge said the denial was based on the timing of the motion.

Before court adjourned on Friday, Tanya’s attorney Arnold Ragas asked Judge Charles Lyons to remove the entire Richmond County District Attorney’s Office from the case.

Ragas argued that Kevin Davis, the chief assistant district attorney, previously worked for the Public Defender’s Office from 2017 through 2019 — the same office that handled parts of Tanya’s defense early in the case.

PREVIOUS TRIAL COVERAGE:

Ragas said Davis participated in internal meetings, strategy discussions and discovery reviews related to Tanya’s case at that time.

Ragas said Davis is now helping supervise the prosecution and could step in if lead prosecutor Justin Mullis has to step away.

The prosecution did not deny that Davis had been consulted but argued the defense’s claims were too vague and lacked specifics about what information Davis may have accessed.

Lyons ordered the defense to file a detailed written motion by midday Sunday, with copies emailed to the court and the DA’s office.

However, on Monday morning, Lyons said he didn’t receive the motion from Ragas. The motion was re-sent and printed in the courtroom just before 9:20 a.m.

Lyons denied a mistrial shortly after 10:30 a.m.

He’s making a separate decision on Davis’ participation in prosecution, taking additional time to consider this specific issue. Lyons says Davis is ordered not to be involved until further notice.

Ragas said he first heard about the “conflict” with Davis on Thursday evening.

He claims he didn’t know Davis worked for the Public Defender’s Office.

Lyons stated he needed more than verbal concerns from Ragas. Lyons said he needed to know actual knowledge that was harmful to the defense, not speculation.

The court heard from Lee Prescott, the lead public defender for the Public Defender’s Office.

Prescott stated Davis was not formally assigned to represent Tripp, but the office holds mandatory monthly case review meetings and all attorneys are required to attend unless in court.

Prescott also stated the attorneys routinely discuss cases informally.

Prescott said he had no recollection of Davis attending case review sessions about Tanya Tripp or Davis being involved in Tanya’s case in any capacity.

Latest testimony

INVESTIGATOR RONALD SYLVESTER

Just before 10:55 a.m. Monday, testimony picked up where it had left off, with jurors hearing from Investigator Ronald Sylvester with the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office.

When the court left off on Friday, we had just finished listening to an interview with Sylvester and Leon in DeKalb County after he was arrested in May 2017.

According to Sylvester, Leon said during the interview that Tanya knew his whereabouts the entire time from April 17 to May 23.

Sylvester said an Amber Alert was not issued for Carwell because the case did not meet the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s criteria for an Amber Alert.

Sylvester says he got Facebook records for Janell and Tanya and looked through Janell’s Facebook Messenger. He said she did “a lot of chatting” through Messenger, and she sent her last message on April 16, 2017 at 8:15 p.m.

Leon’s attorney had no questions for Sylvester.

Ragas, Tanya’s attorney, asked Sylvester whether a search of the home uncovered any blood, and Sylvester said there was none.

Ragas asked if Sylvester had Janell’s Instagram and Snapchat records, and he said no.

Upon questioning by Ragas, Sylvester said shovels found in the back of a pickup were not deemed evidence.

Under redirect by the prosecution, Sylvester said at the time the truck was found, no one in the sheriff’s office knew Janell had been buried.

Sylvester said there are phone records showing that Tanya and Leon were in contact during the early hours of April 17, 2017, but no other day after that.

JAMES H. WILLIAMS

Williams is currently employed by the Nickel Group, a private security firm, but used to track fugitives for the state and worked for the U.S. Marshals Service.

He said he was tasked with trying to locate Leon Tripp.

On May 22, 2017, he got a tip about Leon and Tanya being at a U-Haul facility.

U-Haul told him the Tripps would be coming back the next day with a U-Haul vehicle.

The vehicle arrived on May 23.

Williams said Leon was driving it, and jumped to get into a white Kia Optima driven by Tanya.

Leon was arrested that day.

Tanya was not arrested that day because there were no warrants for her at the time.

MARK DOBBINS

Dobbins is an investigator who has worked for the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office for 24 years.

He is labeled an expert in digital forensics.

He got involved in this case in 2017 – when he was still dealing with child exploitation cases.

He was requested to assist in interviews with Leon Tripp and Tanya Tripp.

He interviewed Tanya Tripp for the first time on May 26, 2017.

She was advised of her Miranda rights, and she never asked for an attorney and was willing to speak with Dobbins. The FBI was present.

The testimony paused as jurors broke for lunch and were told to return at 2 p.m.

However, the jury wasn’t brought back in immediately after lunch.

Instead, there was intense legal discussion, with Ragas arguing against showing the parts of Dobbins’ interview with Tanya during discussion of Tanya’s apparent cancer, pregnancy and miscarriage.

Ragas claims her discussion of apparent cancer is irrelevant to Janell’s disappearance.

Lyons noted that Tanya brought up her apparent cancer during her interview with Pastor Angela Harden, which the jury has already watched.

The prosecution argued it is character evidence.

After nearly 30 minutes of discussion, Lyons found the interview relevant and admitted it, but the defense continued to argue against it.

Eventually around 3 p.m., Dobbins’ testimony continued, including a recording of his hourlong interview with Tanya, which included the presence of Carl Wright of the FBI.

Neither Tanya nor Leon Tripp watched the screen as the interview was played Monday.

In the interview, Tanya appears with her hand holding her head up, with her cheek in the palm of her hand.

Dobbins told Tanya he was trying to get a “better understanding” of Janell’s disappearance. He asked her to take him from the start to where they were at the moment.

Tanya told Dobbins she had lung and brain cancer as well as asthma. She said the smoke from the cookout they were having on Easter 2017 was making her sick.

According to Tanya, Leon told her to go lie down, so she went inside and fell asleep while Janell stayed outside cooking but later came in to watch TV with her.

Tanya says Leon came in around 1–1:30 a.m. and asked to use her phone, supposedly to look something up. She heard the back door and a vehicle leave but didn’t think much of it.

Tanya says she didn’t realize anything was wrong until her younger daughter woke her up saying Janell was gone.

Tanya tried calling her phone and Leon picked up – she says Leon immediately apologized and told her he had Janell with him. He said he’d taken Janell to help a friend named Maurice whose car had broken down near Clarks Hill.

Tanya says Leon told her they would return to Augusta, Maurice would go his way, and Leon would go his, because Leon had to work.

After that call, she says she kept calling and texting, but eventually the communication stopped. That same day, April 17, she reported Janell missing.

Tanya says Leon came back home at some point and acted surprised with all of the missing and kidnapping talk – at this point Tanya walks Dobbins through what she claims happened.

Leon and Janell went to Atlanta – the truck ran out of gas on Cleveland Avenue; he and Janell walked to get gas; and when they came back, someone had stolen their phones from the truck. She says Leon told her they stayed in Atlanta a bit, then on April 19, Janell said she wanted to go home because she missed her.

According to Tanya, Leon claimed he took Janell to a MARTA train station, gave her directions to get to the Greyhound bus station, gave her around $150 plus more money for her birthday, and told her to go back to Augusta and call Tanya when she arrived.

In the interview, Tanya defended Leon. She also said Leon told her Janell took a bus back to Augusta and may have gotten off at the wrong stop.

Dobbins told Tanya: “At some point, you need to pick a side because you owe it to your daughter.”

Tanya told Dobbins in the interview she’d lost a baby just days earlier.

Other highlights of the interview:

• Tanya says: “I’m not giving up on finding her.”
• “There are things that aren’t just adding up,” Dobbins tells Tanya.
• Dobbins starts hammering in on Tanya at this point. He has questions about whether the images of the baby Tanya claims to be hers are actually hers.
• Dobbins says, “Do you love your daughter?” and, “Then why can’t we get to the bottom of where she is?”
• “Rest assured we are going to get to the bottom of this,” Dobbins says. At this point, Tanya mentions something about “her baby’s body washing up.” Dobbins made no mention of this; she brought it up herself.
• Tanya claims she was seven weeks along when she got the sonogram that Dobbins is showing her in this interview. She says she told Leon she was pregnant after Janell went missing.
• Tanya says she is in “the third stage of cancer,” including lung cancer in her left lung, and also has brain cancer.
• Dobbins accuses Tanya of lying about being pregnant and miscarrying.
• Dobbins asks, “How does it make sense that you lied about being pregnant to find your daughter?” and, “Does it make sense he didn’t communicate with you that she would be on the way home if she did in fact take a bus?”

Details of the case

The Tripps face charges of murder, aggravated assault-family violence and concealing the death of another in connection with the death of Carwell, who was Tanya Tripp’s daughter.

Carwell disappeared on her 16th birthday in 2017. Tanya Tripp reported both her daughter and her husband Leon Tripp missing.

Carwell’s disappearance prompted months of community searches, prayer vigils and flier distributions. Many of those who showed up did not know her personally.

Carwell’s remains were found in March 2018 in a shallow grave behind a home on Golden Camp Road — nearly a year after she was first reported missing.

The first three days of the trial had a slow start as jury selection proved to be difficult last week.

Some potential jurors said they had followed the case for years, dating back to when Carwell was first reported missing in 2017. Others said they knew witnesses or had participated in community search teams and were excused earlier in the week.

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