Michael Ledford's mother, stepfather and younger brother called the authorities when the accused murderer came home with bloody pants and a story about beating unconscious a prostitute who bit him.
"I didn't want him arrested but I had no choice," Shirley Mihalek testified Monday.
The mother said her son should already have been locked up and his probation revoked on July 25, 2006, the day Jennifer Ewing was beaten to death just off the popular Silver Comet Trail in Paulding County.
She said she pleaded with authorities in early July to get her son off the streets but the probation officers only told him to "behave."
"It they got him off the streets ... that lady would be alive. They let this happen," Mihlaek testified in her son's death penalty trial.
"They promised to do something legally. They didn't and now it's too late," she said."
Authorities say Ledford ambushed Ewing while she was on the 32nd mile of her routine 50-mile ride along the trail and then murdered her.
Monday was the first day of testimony about the death of the 53-year-old Sandy Springs woman on July 25, 2006.
In the afternoon, prosecutors called the three Ledford family members to tell about the day he came home with bloody pants.
Mark Ledford testified family members had called his brother's probation officers several times to report his drinking and his penchant for staring at women. Drinking would have been grounds for revoking his probation. But he was never arrested.
He spent 10 years incarcerated for a 1991 rape and was serving 10 years on probation when Ewing was attacked.
Shirley Mihalek said her son, now 46, came home around 2 p.m. July 25, 2006, looking beat up.
"He was in bad shape. He needed help," the elderly woman testified, trying to speak despite a disability caused by a 2005 stroke. "He was ... sweating. There was blood on his private parts."
Prosecutors say Ledford dragged Ewing about 70 feet off the trail in a remote area and tried to force her to perform oral sex on him. But she fought back and was beaten. Ewing suffocated 15 to 20 minutes later because her chest was crushed, District Attorney Drew Lane said.
Ledford's family members testified that Ledford claimed a prostitute -- a 6-foot-tall black woman in her late 20s or early 30s -- bit him when he said he could not pay her $40 for oral sex. Ledford told his family he beat the prostitute to get her to let go, they testified.
"She tried to bite it off," Shirley Mihalek said.
But Ledford refused to go to the hospital despite the blood and pain. "When he tried to shower, he screamed it hurt," Shirley Mihalek said.
Mark Mihalek testified he and a sister went to the Dallas Police Department to tell them of their brother's story.
And the mother called her son's probation officer because she was afraid the woman was hurt and needed help. Probation officer Ray Jones testified he went to the Mihaleks' house and took photographs of Ledford's injury. The jury and alternates -- 12 men and four women -- was shown the picture.
The probation officers also tested him for alcohol. The result was positive but Ledford was not arrested for violating his probation by drinking beer, Jones testified.
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