SAN ANTONIO, Texas (CN) – Friends and family of Cayley Mandadi filled a San Antonio, Texas, courtroom during opening arguments Tuesday in the trial of Mark Howerton, who is charged with murdering his 19-year-old girlfriend in October 2017.
“Cayley was a fun, quirky young lady who had just turned 19 years old,” state prosecutor Alessandra Cranshaw said in her opening statement.
She was a sophomore communications major – and a cheerleader – at Trinity University in San Antonio at the time of her death. But her relationship with Howerton “was marked by possessiveness, controlling behavior,” jealousy and violence, Cranshaw continued.
The prosecutor told the jury it will see evidence from medical examinations and the autopsy report, which found Mandadi died after “blunt force trauma to the head and face” and indicated that she had been sexually assaulted. Cayley was “covered with bruises from head to toe, from ears to inner thighs down to her feet,” Cranshaw said.
In Texas, the state must show that the crime would not have occurred “but for” the defendant’s actions – that Mandadi’s death was caused by Howerton alone.
The indictment before the jury claims Howerton “intentionally and knowingly” caused Mandadi to die “by striking” her with his hand, “grabbing and shaking” or “causing her head to strike a blunt object.” It also claims he acted “with intent to cause serious bodily injury” to Mandadi in the course of murdering, sexually assaulting or kidnapping her.
A four-month investigation by the Texas Rangers culminated in a warrant for Howerton’s arrest in February 2018. Investigators concluded that Howerton had abducted Mandadi from the San Antonio music festival the pair had been attending and then punched her face and head and sexually assaulted her.
According to the affidavit for his arrest, Howerton told the Rangers that he and Mandadi drank heavily and took MDMA, a party drug also known as “Molly” or “ecstasy,” at the music festival on Oct. 29, 2017, before leaving for Houston. Howerton says the pair got into an argument, then pulled over to have “consensual but ‘rough’ sex” involving choking. He says he later noticed Mandadi had stopped breathing and had no pulse.
Howerton told investigators that he was approaching the town of Luling, so he got the attention of an ambulance on the road and drove into the local hospital, where emergency responders called police to report an “unresponsive” young woman who was “nude from the waist down, had bruises on her neck/thigh area, and was bleeding from her vagina.”
During the jury selection process Monday, lead defense attorney John Hunter of Hunter Lane & Jampala explained to the pool of potential jurors that they are not deciding whether Howerton committed kidnapping or sexual assault but only whether he committed murder beyond a reasonable doubt.
Texas’ “felony murder” rule permits the jury to convict Howerton of murder if they find that Mandadi’s death resulted from the course of another felonious action — including kidnapping or sexual assault, Hunter explained. If the jury finds him guilty of kidnapping or sexual assault, but not murder, they must acquit.
Hunter maintained Howerton’s alibi in his opening statement, in which he argued that the state will not be able to paint a “clear-cut” picture for the jury.
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