Carolyn Christian was crying before she began to tell jurors about her broken-hearted life since Jamie Hood murdered her son, Athens-Clarke County police officer Elmer “Buddy” Christian in March 2011.
She sobbed, her words often unintelligible, as she read from a written victim impact statement Wednesday afternoon, the beginning of the sentencing phase in Hood’s death penalty trial.
“Words cannot express the pain and anguish our family has experienced,” Carolyn Christian said.
She said carrying “a child in her womb for nine months for nine months creates an everlasting bond.”
Several of the jurors who convicted Hood of murder two days ago dabbed away tears as she testified as spectators sniffed. Hood's mother, Azalee Hood, sitting just a few feet behind her son, tucked her head as she cried into her hand.
Buddy Christian’s father also cried as he told jurors how his son’s violent death had changed his life.
“As a father I want to fix things,” said Elmer Bosco Christian Jr. “I want to solve problems as they arise. In this case there is no solution there is no way to remedy what has happened. I promised my wife that nothing would happen to Buddy as a police officer but again I failed. I just keep telling myself that there was nothing I could do but that is little comfort.”
Both parents walked past Hood without glancing at him as they left the courtroom after their testimony.
As Christian’s widow, Melissa, came into the courtroom to speak, Hood’s mother left and was not there for the photo’s of the dead officer’s wedding, children and gatherings with friends and family. In an even voice, that sometimes faltered, Melissa Christian spoke of the green-eyed love of her life and the trips with her young children to memorials and ceremonies honoring fallen officers.
“It’s hard to summarize a life that ended too soon,” Melissa Christian said.
He was “a child of God, a son, a grandson, a brother, a cousin, a friend, a husband and a father. He was a hero not because of how he died but because of how he lived.”
As Melissa Christian spoke from the stand, Hood kept his head down, leaning forward with his elbow on his knees.
The prosecutors said he had completed his case with Melissa Christian. Hood said he wanted to wait until Thursday to call his witnesses.
“It’s pretty rough on me seeing all these impact witnesses crying,” Hood said. “I got to go back and lick my wounds.”
Hood, who is resenting himself, is expected to call his mother Thursday to testify in his behalf.
The police officer who was wounded just before Christian was shot also spoke to jurors
“My life was changed forever,” said police officer Tony Howard.
He still has pain. He can no longer work extra jobs that boosted his family’s income. Howard said he avoids people to avoid being asked about Hood.
Still, Hood blamed others, especially Howard, for putting him in the situation where he shot and killed Christian
During his opening statements at the beginning of the penalty phase, Hood told the jurors he was going to tell them things that he was not allowed to bring up before he was convicted. He spoke of the circumstances of the armed robbery that cost him 12 years in prison and his younger brother's fatal shooting by a police officer.
• If he had not been “illegally” convicted of a 1997 armed robbery he would not have gone to prison, which meant selling drugs was the only way he could earn a living once he was released.
• If Judon Brooks had not called police to report Hood had kidnapped him, law enforcement would not have been looking for him on March 22, 2011.
• If his brother, who picked him up after he abandoned his car because Brook escaped from the trunk, had not missed the turn he would never have crossed paths with Officer Tony Howard and Officer Elmer “Buddy” Christian and shot them.
• If Howard had “followed protocol” and not reached out the car window to grab him as he ran past, he would never have pulled a gun and started shooting, wounding Howard and killing Christian.
“I’m here about why,” Hood told jurors who had convicted him of murder on Monday and now will decide if he should die for murdering Christian and for murdering his friend, Omar Wray, Dec. 28, 2010.
District Attorney Ken Mauldin told jurors to ignore his excuses.
“There’s no way those circumstances justify what this defendant did,” Mauldin said.
Hood was also convicted Monday of kidnapping a friend, Brooks, on March 22, 2011, setting of a series of events that left Howard wounded and Christian dead. It was the police shooting that led police to suspect Hood in Wray’s death three months earlier. They matched a bullet casing in Hoods car to the gun used to kill Wray.
Wray’s mother, Ruby Jordan, tearfully told the jurors of how her son’s death has affected her and the lives of his two daughters and son.
“How could this man murder my son outside my house on my carport with me inside?” Jordan said. “What was the purpose of this senseless, cold-blooded action? There is no answer. There is no way to tell the harsh impact on my life. A part of me is gone and never to return.”
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