A Clayton County murder defendant said he kissed his girlfriend to let her know her mother was “out of the picture,” according to a videotape of an interview with police played in court Thursday.
“I gave her a kiss on the cheek,” Latoris Grovner told Clayton police detectives in an interview filmed days after Alena Marble was beaten to death, and replayed Thursday for a Clayton jury at his murder trial.
Grovner, 22, is on trial for Marble’s death in June 2011, charged with murder, several counts of aggravated assault and attempting to conceal her death.
His girlfriend, 23-year-old Kajul “Beauty” Harvey — Marble’s daughter — is also charged in Marble’s killing, but is being tried separately.
Both face life in prison if convicted.
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 him 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.”
He said he went to Harvey, who was sleeping upstairs with her children, before they moved the body and she wanted assurance that the deed was done.
“She sat up in the bed,” he said. “I asked her was she ready, and she said, ‘are you sure?’”
Prosecutors say Grovner sneaked into the rear of the Clayton townhome on the morning of June 3, 2011, 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 before stuffing the woman, alive, into the trunk of her car and parking the car under the June sun for more than a day.
Dr. Jacqueline Martin, the GBI’s deputy chief medical examiner, described the multiple injuries – cuts, bruises and fractures – to Marble’s head and face as being “traumatically disfigured,” noting there were no signs of defensive injuries or evidence that Marble attempted to block the blows with her arms or hands.
“Ms. Marble died of blunt trauma to the head,” Martin said.
In the interview, Grovner said that Marble didn’t want him in her home or around her daughter. Court records show that Grovner had beaten Harvey and cut her with a knife in 2009, and a temporary restraining order – one he repeatedly ignored – was in place for almost a year after that.
Grovner also said in the video that he attacked Marble on the morning of June 3 after Harvey left the back door of the townhome open for him.
“I came in the back door, and she ran to the living room,” he said. “I was trying to tell her that Beauty told me to come in.”
Grovner said Marble went for the phone then grabbed a knife, both of which he took from her.
“I grabbed the knife and phone, and she cut my hand,” he said. “First I hit her with my fist. She said my name. I only hit her with the bottle once or twice.”
Clayton Police Detective Joanne Southerland, who conducted the video-recorded interview, asked Grovner whether he used a pot to beat Marble, and he only dropped his head, mumbling unintelligibly.
In the interview, Grovner blamed Marble for keeping the couple apart.
“She was pregnant before but her momma threatened her,” he said, referring to his then-21-year-old girlfriend. “She killed the baby. It would’ve been 2 years old and we would’ve been in our own house.”
And he told investigators that he and Harvey had discussed a plan to get Marble out of the way so that they could be together.
“We didn’t say we were going to beat her up and kill her,” Grovner said. “I was going to take her to one of my homeboys’ house, and let him take her somewhere.”
Days before the attack, an attempt to initiate that plan failed, he told police.
“I called a dude two days before that happened who said he was down” to get rid of Marble, Grovner told police. “I called him at 10 o’clock that night and he said he didn’t have a ride. And I didn’t have a car, so I just stayed at my momma’s house.”
That Friday, when he went to execute the plan, Grovner said he got more than he bargained for.
“She was stronger than I expected,” he said. “I never thought it would be like that.”
The beating didn’t immediately kill Marble, whose screams at one point woke her granddaughter, Harvey’s 4-year-old daughter.
The now-6-year-old testified Wednesday that Grovner grabbed her by the neck when she rushed to her grandmother’s side and tried to call 911.
In an interview with police, recorded after the incident and played Wednesday for the jury, the girl told investigators that she watched helplessly as Grovner put her grandmother into the trunk of the car.
“He put tape over her mouth,” the girl told investigators.
Grovner said Marble was still alive even after he put her into the trunk of her car.
“She never really stopped talking,” he said. “She said, ‘you knocked out my teeth.’ She was still moving” when he closed the trunk.
It wasn’t clear that he had any plans beyond ditching the car, however.
“She was still breathing,” Grovner said. “I didn’t know she was going to die.”
After parking the car Friday morning, he said he returned to the house and had breakfast with Harvey and her children.
They then left with Marble’s bank card to try – unsuccessfully, because they didn’t have a PIN number – to withdraw money from as many as three ATMs.
He told police that he later went swimming at the apartment complex pool, watched movies with Harvey and had a steak dinner.
“Did you ever go back to the car?” Southerland asked him as the interview came to a close. “You said you put her in the car and she was still breathing.”
“I went back,” Grovner responded, saying he opened the trunk around 6 p.m.
Police testified that temperatures that day were anywhere between 85 and 95 degrees, and the car was parked in an unshaded space at a nearby apartment complex.
“Was she still breathing?” Southerland asked.
Grovner shook his head.
The video ended, and the prosecutors rested their case after hearing from Martin.
Harvey and Grovner are being held in the Clayton County jail without bond.
Return for updates.
About the Author
