A jury will now decide the fate of a Clayton County man accused of severely beating his girlfriend’s mother before stuffing her into a trunk to die in early June 2011.
Latoris Grovner faces life in prison for allegedly killing Alena Marble as part of a plot to get his girlfriend’s mother “out of the picture.”
Kajul “Beauty” Harvey, Marble’s daughter and Grovner’s girlfriend, also faces murder charges and is being tried separately.
Prosecutors have said that Grovner attacked Marble in her home the morning of June 3, 2011, after Harvey left the back door open so he could get inside.
When he got into the house, he allegedly startled the 59-year-old Marble and chased her into the living room, where he beat her with his fists, a vodka bottle and a metal cooking pot. He then allegedly stuffed the woman, alive, into the trunk of her own car and parked the car in the June sun for more than a day.
Early Thursday afternoon, Grovner’s attorney, David White gave his closing arguments, telling the jury that what his client did was a reaction to being startled upon entering the home, and that the defendant should be charged with voluntary manslaughter, not malice murder.
The defense attorney said Grovner was caught unwittingly in the middle of an ongoing feud between mother and daughter.
“Mr. Grovner goes into the house and is met there unexpectedly by Ms. Marble,” White said. “He was a victim of circumstance. There was a lot of things going on that he didn’t know about.”
But prosecutors outlined a bizarre timeline that followed the beating as Grovner and Harvey allegedly tried to empty her mother’s bank account.
“He’s got zero remorse,” Clayton County Assistant District Attorney Kathryn Powers said in her closing arguments. “He left her bleeding on the couch while he went to try to get money … twice.”
Powers pointed to an interview Grovner had with police a day after the beating, as she completed the timeline, saying he ransacked Marble’s room looking for her PIN number, before putting her – still alive – in the trunk, parking the car across the street from her townhome, then returning to an ATM to take a third crack at withdrawing her money.
“As Alena Marble is taking her last breath, he’s trying to get her money,” Powers said.
Thursday, prosecutors showed a video recording of investigators questioning Grovner about the circumstances surrounding Marble's death.
In the video, Grovner indicated that no words were exchanged between himself and his girlfriend once he finished beating Marble at the home she and Harvey shared.
“She knew I was going to get rid of her,” he told investigators. “We were talking about getting her out of the picture.”
Thursday afternoon, White countered the prosecutors’ continued claims that the death was part of a plot to remove Marble as an obstacle to Grovner’s and Harvey’s attempts to be together and raise a family. (Harvey was pregnant at the time with Grovner’s child.)
White said the attack was an unexpected reaction, spurred by the stress of the continued struggle he had with a woman trying to keep him from his girlfriend.
“Nothing here is rehearsed,” he said, repeating his client’s words. “Nothing is planned.”
But Powers scoffed at the suggestion that Marble’s death was the result of manslaughter and that Grovner was sorry for what had happened.
“He had sex (with Harvey) while Alena Marble lay dying in the trunk of her car,” Powers said. “This was not some sort of heat-of-the-moment killing. (Calling it) voluntary manslaughter is an insult to Alena Marble, to her family … and to the citizens of Clayton County.”
Both Harvey and Grovner are being held in the Clayton County jail without bond.
The jury begins deliberating the case Friday at 9 a.m.
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