Defendant screams at prosecutor after closing statement

A Henry County jury heard closing arguments in a death penalty trial Monday morning but they didn’t hear the defendant call the prosecutor a liar.

Rodney Reaves, accused of beating to death his 11-year-old daughter, Joella Reaves, during the 2003 Thanksgiving holiday, grew emotional after the jury left the courtroom for a lunch break.

“You’re a [expletive deleted] liar,” Reaves yelled at Assistant District Attorney Jim Wright. “As God as my witness.”

Deputies led Reaves out of the courtroom but he could be heard shouting through the closed door. Gary Bowman, one of his attorneys, walked to the holding cell to talk to Reaves. His other attorney, Ricky Morris, said Reaves just needed to calm down.

Wright’s closing words accusing him of killing his daughter were undoubtedly hard for Reaves to take.

“He left her with those injuries,” Wright said during his closing statement. “He didn’t want to have anything more to do with Joella Reaves. He got in his car and got far away from her.”

Reaves maintains his innocence and claims he was 400 miles away when his daughter died from a multitude of injuries from her head to her feet. A defense forensic expert testified last week that Joella died from a single blow to her head and died after Rodney Reaves left for Virginia.

But the DeKalb County medical examiner who conducted the autopsy testified that the girl died slowly over a period of days as her body shut down from being beaten.

Wright made that point during his closing.

“There is no concern about where he was when she died because the reason for Joella’s death began on Nov. 27 and continued to the 28th, 29th, 30th,” Wright told jurors. “She probably died in her sleep, laying in her bed. It doesn’t matter where the defendant was when she passed.”

Joella was found dead in her bed Dec. 1, 2003.

Reaves told police that day that Joella was being punished for stealing loose change from her stepmother’s purse and mouthwash from her half-brother, Mikey Reaves. Stepmother Charlott Reaves, also charged with murder and facing the death penalty in April, ordered the girl to write the sentence “I am a thief and a liar, I am good for nothing and I stink.”

Rodney Reaves admitted tying her hands and ankles with speaker wire and keeping her locked in the garage for days. He repeatedly claimed that the girl was punished for refusing to write the sentences.

But Wright showed jurors a piece of notebook paper dotted with Joella’s dried blood with those very words written on it.

“There is a number on here,” Wright said. “It is 794. And she wrote the time, 3:25 a.m., as if she knew something was going on, to tell someone, ‘I was in the garage at 3:25 a.m., bleeding, trying to write these lines.’”

Bowman and Morris shared the closing duties but both told jurors that Rodney Reaves did not kill his daughter. Bowman flat out pinned the blame on Charlott Reaves.

“She had the opportunity, the temper and she didn’t like the girl coming into her house,” Bowman said. “Rodney Reaves was a compliant person.”

Bowman earlier told jurors that Rodney, a career Navy sailor, was dating Charlott and Joella’s mother, Tanya YeVette Carter, at the same time in 1991. Right about the time Rodney opted to marry Charlott instead of Tanya, Carter discovered she was pregnant, Bowman said. Reaves said he didn’t find out about his daughter until 1996, a year after Carter was killed in a car crash.

He sought custody in 2002, and Joella left Maryland to live in Stockbridge. Reaves told police that his wife constantly complained about his daughter and resented caring for her while he was on a Navy ship in Virginia.

The jury will not deliberate Tuesday because one juror’s husband is having surgery. They will resume deliberations Wednesday.