More charges for woman accused in mother’s death

A Clayton County woman accused of conspiring with her boyfriend to kill her mother will see more charges piled against her when she go trial next month.

When Kajul Harvey was indicted with her boyfriend Latoris Grovner for the 2011 murder of Alena Marble, there were only just over a half-dozen charges the two shared.

Now a Clayton County grand jury has nearly quadrupled the counts against Harvey with a beefed-up re-indictment that came less than a month after Grovner was sentenced to 30 years for voluntary manslaughter rather than murder.

“They just upped the ante a whole lot there, for her,” former DeKalb County District Attorney J. Tom Morgan told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Wednesday.

But Grovner’s verdict poses difficult questions for the jury that will hear Harvey’s case, University of Georgia endowed law professor Ronald Carlson said.

“What does this bode for Harvey’s trial?” Carlson asked.

And Harvey, 23, could actually get a stiffer sentence than her boyfriend, even though he physically carried out the actions which led to Marble’s death, some attorneys said. Both were arrested in June 2011.

“She could get life in prison,” private attorney Jackie Patterson told the AJC.

The original indictment charged Harvey and Grovner with murder, four counts of felony murder – killing a person during the commission of a felony – multiple counts of aggravated assault and aggravated battery, evidence tampering and concealing a death.

The new indictment has 23 counts and adds felony charges of kidnapping, burglary, false imprisonment, robbery and financial transaction card theft to the beating charges, and an accusation of felony murder for each new charge.

According to prosecutors, Grovner and Harvey wanted to get Marble “out of the way” because they felt she opposed their relationship after Grovner was arrested for attacking Harvey.

Grovner even told police during an interview recorded and replayed during his trial that he believed Marble forced Harvey to abort a pregnancy two years prior to the June 3, 2011 killing.

In that interview, he admitted that Harvey, who lived with Marble, left the door of their home open the morning of the attack so that he could get in.

Once inside the townhome, Grovner told police he immediately encountered Marble – both startling the other – and began beating her, first with his fist, then with a glass vodka bottle, and finally with a metal sauce pot.

Afterward, he said he and Harvey pillaged Marble’s bedroom to find her ATM cards and the corresponding personal identification numbers, while Marble lay bloodied, face literally broken and teeth knocked out, on the living room sofa.

The couple made three attempts to withdraw money from Marble’s bank account, unsuccessfully, Grovner told police. Then Grovner said he wrapped Marble in blankets and took her out to her car, where he placed her in the trunk and left her to die in the June heat.

Marble died in the trunk, police said.

“The girlfriend did not comport herself in any better fashion,” Carlson said, referring to info that arose during Grovners’ trial. “Somebody went for a swim … and they had a steak dinner. The daughter was just giving abandonment to the mom. That’s going to be brought up in the next trial.”

During the January trial, Grovner’s attorney David White was able to get manslaughter added to the options the jury had for murder as a “lesser-included” charge.

By selecting manslaughter as opposed to murder, any felony murder charges against Grovner, which each carried mandatory life sentences, were rendered moot.

Former top DeKalb prosecutor Morgan said the voluntary manslaughter charge fit, given the charges in the original indictment.

“You’ve got to have a felony that is separate from the actual death,” Morgan said following the verdict.

On Wednesday, he suggested that prosecutors added charges along those lines to bolster the indictment against Harvey, and likely increase the chance of a felony murder conviction.

“Prosecutors can re-indict a case,” he said. “When you add those to it, it makes it a lot easier for the prosecution because you don’t have to prove intent to kill.”

Georgia’s party to a crime laws allow prosecutors to charge and jurors to punish any co-conspirator for participating in a crime that ended with someone’s death.

“It’s a lot easier for the jury to understand and to swallow than to prove malice murder,” Morgan said.

Still, Carlson said the defense may have an advantage, should the jury be informed of the verdicts for Grovner.