With six utterances of “yes, ma’am” to a Cobb County judge Wednesday, it was determined that the jury would not hear Erica White defend herself during her own murder trial.
The trial, which started more than a week ago, will determine whether or not the Austell woman poisoned her disabled 2-year-old son, Tyrael McFall, in November 2014, and then opened credit cards in his name.
The jury is set to hear closing arguments Thursday.
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Prosecutors have painted the 45-year-old woman as a calculated killer, but her defense attorneys portrayed a mother broken by her boy’s death.
John Melvin, a prosecutor on the case, said the state brought 48 witnesses and the defense had seven.
Melvin said Tyrael was killed with Tylenol No. 3 — which has codeine — that was ground up into his gastric bypass tube.
The young boy had been profoundly handicapped since eight weeks old when his father, Joseph McFall, beat him.
Credit: ALYSSA POINTER/ALYSSA.POINTER@AJ
Credit: ALYSSA POINTER/ALYSSA.POINTER@AJ
McFall and White were married less than a year, court records show, and upon seperation White wrote that her reasoning was his cheating and severe beating of Tyrael.
In April 2014, McFall was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
White’s murder trial also invoked the name of another man, Michael Schullerman, whom she was dating when Tyrael died.
Police originally charged White and Schullerman with killing the boy and taking out several credit cards in the dead boy’s name by falsifying information.
About two months ago, Schullerman pleaded guilty to about a dozen charges — but not the murder counts.
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He was sentenced to serve 20 years in prison on a racketeering charge, which White also faces, for financial fraud. That fraud, according to the indictment, involves not notifying Social Security of the boy’s death in order to continue getting benefits.
Beginning in opening arguments, defense attorney Bryan Lumpkin indicated that Schullerman was involved in what happened the night Tyrael died.
But it doesn’t matter.
The defense rested its case Wednesday. Only closing arguments and jury deliberation are left between White and her sentencing.
Read previous coverage of the case here.
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