The first week of the double murder trial of Rafael Aikens concluded yesterday. Managing editor Tami Roleff says the after the prosecution continued its examination of the witness who took the murder weapon home to clean, jurors heard about the victim’s cell phone records and were then shown how GPS tracking showed the victim’s cell phone moving after her murder…
Search warrants of Christy McKissic’s cell phone showed 16 phone calls and text messages between McKissic’s phone and a phone number that belonged to the defendant, Rafael Aikens, in the last 2 ½ hours of her life.
Detectives also served search warrants to follow the GPS coordinates of her phone. The records show that her phone was at her home on Bedouin Avenue in Twentynine Palms until 12:03 a.m. on March 24, 2017. At 12:04 a.m., McKissic’s cell phone was about three to four blocks away. Sheriff’s deputies have already testified that they received a 911 call from McKissic’s young daughter at 12:05 a.m.
Video surveillance from the main gate of the Combat Center shows a dark-colored Toyota 4Runner entering the base at 12:19 a.m., the same time as GPS coordinates show the phone entering the base. GPS tracking showed that McKissic’s cell phone ended up in the parking lot of the barracks where Aikens lived on the Marine base. Investigators say that Aikens surreptitiously borrowed a friend’s black Toyota 4Runner to go visit McKissic that night. A Sheriff’s sergeant testified that the GPS location data had been wiped clean from Aikens phone, so there was no record of where he had been prior to March 27.
The trial resumes Monday.
TRIAL SUMMARY:
Prosecutor Justin Crocker continues his examination of Eric Branske
Crocker showed him photos of barracks and asked what the circles were in the corners of parking lots. Branske explained they are dumpsters the Marines can use to throw away their trash.
Branske says he had not seen Aikens since March 2017, and his hair looks different now than it did then. A photo of Aikens at his arraignment in 2017 was shown, and Branske agrees that Aikens had short hair on the sides and longer, curlier hair on top.
Cross-examination by the defense attorney Donald Calabria
Branske admitted that he refused to meet with or give an interview to the defense attorney or his investigator.
Branske was asked about why he joined the Marine Corps, and why he decided to join the Sheriff’s Department. He loved his country, the college benefits were a factor, and he wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps. Calabria spends a lot of time asking about patriotism and whether people join the military to learn how to become trained killers.
Calabria also asked about Branske’s friendship with his former roommate, Corey Brinlee. Branske said they weren’t roommates until October 2016 and were roommates until Brinlee got out; he thinks that was in October 2017. Branske got out in December 2017.
Branske said he and Aikens were good friends. They’d go out into town for dinner. Branske was too young to drink at the time but Aikens would drink hard liquor, or beer.
Calabria asked Branske about an argument he had with Aikens, which Branske did not recall at first. Calabria reminded him it was when Branske had firewatch and fell asleep and the next day they had a pretty heated argument about it. Calabria asked him if he called Branske a derogatory racial slur; Branske said he didn’t remember that.
Calabria then accused Branske of changing his testimony from the written statement and recording he gave Detective Clark in March 2017 to yesterday’s testimony on the stand, but he never explicitly says what testimony was changed or different, although it is later inferred that he said Aikens had a smirk on his face when he said “Just know, it’s to the first degree.”
Calabria pressed him to admit that his memory of the events—when he didn’t mention a smirk—was fresher than his memory of the same events in August 2019.
Branske was also asked about whether he talked about the weekend of March 24-27 with his roommate, and he didn’t recall. Just generalities.
Calabria asked him about his knowledge of the relationship between Aikens and McKissic. Branske admits he never met or saw McKissic, and he just overheard conversations about McKissic wanting a closer relationship. Didn’t talk to Aikens about it.
Branske said he doesn’t remember if Aikens ever took a taxi or an Uber. He lent Aikens his truck one time when Aikens had to go to the company headquarters because Aikens did not have a vehicle on the base.
Branske admitted that while there were Marines walking by when Aikens asked him to bring the pistol home, he doesn’t know if there was anyone who actually heard the conversation.
Under redirect by the prosecutor, Branske admitted that he did not know anything about the murders in Twentynine Palms until March 30.
When asked if Branske had changed his testimony, he said no, it was only that the questions he was asked then and now were worded differently.
Branske denied that his argument with Aikens changed his relationship. They were still friends afterward, he said. He considered him a best friend.
Branske said when he was first questioned by Detective Clark, he had no idea why.
Calabria cross-examined Branske again and spent some time establishing how long it takes to drive from the Marine Corps base to Redlands, and what time he thought he had left the base and what time he had arrived in Redlands. Branske thought he had left sometime between 3 and 3:30 and arrived in Redlands between 4:15 and 5.
Timothy Branske
A retired Sheriff’s sergeant, and father to Eric Branske.
Timothy Branske testified how he was in his garage when Eric Branske arrived on March 24, 2017. Eric said he had brought Aikens’ gun home with him to clean and store for his friend. Eric unlocked the case the pistol was in and Timothy immediately asked where the gun’s magazine was. Eric said he didn’t know and called Aikens immediately to ask him. Timothy Branske said his son’s conversation was very short, 10 seconds, maybe. He didn’t hear Aikens’ response to Eric’s question about the missing magazine.
On March 30, Timothy Branske got a call from Sgt Ratliff who said he was interviewing Eric Branske on the base. Ratliff asked Branske if Aiken’s gun was still in his gun safe in the garage; Timothy Branske checked and it was. Ratliff said detectives would come the next day to pick it up, which they did.
Sergeant Mark Green
A member of the homicide team investigating the murder of Christy McKissic and Renee Metcalf.
Green wrote the search warrants to get information about McKissic’s phone from Google.
He also watched surveillance video at Edchada’s the night of the murder, and saw Aikens along with several other Marines. They were at the bar from 6:09 p.m. to 8:31 p.m.
Green described what Aikens was wearing in the surveillance video, including what appeared to be cowboy boots, which were visible under his pant legs.
Detective Bruce Southworth
A member of the homicide team investigating the murders
Southworth served a search warrant on Aikens’ room and searched it. He found Aikens’ cell phone. There were a pair of cowboy boots in a back pack, but Aikens’ roommate, Wenseslao Canela, said the boots belonged to a friend of his and were not Aikens’ boots.
Wenseslao Canela
Rafael Aikens’ roommate in room 126 in Barracks 1412 on board the Combat Center. He said they were very good friends, “like brothers.”
Canela said he was pretty drunk the night he and other Marines went to Edchadas. He started drinking in the afternoon. He fell asleep on the bar. When he got home, he went straight to bed. He doesn’t know the exact time, but estimates he was asleep by 10:30. Aikens never came in the room while Canela was still awake.
Canela woke up about 4 a.m. and noticed that Aikens was asleep in his bed.
When their room was searched, he told the detectives the boots in the backpack were not Aikens’ boots, but belonged to another friend.
He and Aikens talked about McKissic occasionally, but he never met her and only saw her once. Aikens and Canela were walking out of the 7-11 as McKissic was walking in, and when the Marines were back in their car, Aikens told Canela that was McKissic. Aikens did not talk to her on that occasion.
Canela said that Aikens told him McKissic wanted to be his girlfriend. He said no way. They got in argument because he didn’t want to be her boyfriend. One time she was driving him back to base because he didn’t have a car and they got in an argument. She told him to get out of car and he had to walk back to room, which was about a five-minute drive in a car.
Under cross-examination, Canela said Aikens was a great Marine, a leader, one of the best. Canela did not notice that Canela acted any differently the day after the murders, he acted completely normal.
Sgt Marc Goodwin was recalled.
Goodwin booked Aikens into jail when he was arrested. Aikens was not wearing cowboy boots at the time.
Goodwin reviewed the surveillance video from the main gate at the Combat Center when a dark-colored Toyota 4Runner came through at 12:19 a.m. on March 24.
Goodwin then began explaining the results he received from Google for a search warrant on McKissic’s phone.
The last activity on her phone was at 11:27 p.m. on March 23. No records of any kind after that. But prior to that, she sent and received 14 calls, text messages, and voice mails between 9:21 p.m. and 11:27 p.m. on March 23. Those calls were to one phone number, ending in -9196, which was Aikens’ phone number.
The detectives could not retrieve the text messages from McKissic’s phone because they have to have the actual phone in order to get the messages, and they never found it.
Google also provides GPS coordinates for McKissic’s phone. They plotted those coordinates on a map and saw that her phone was at her home on Bedouin Avenue in Twentynine Palms all night on March 23. Then at 12:04, her phone left her house and start traveling northbound. McKissic’s daughter called 911 about that time; deputies received the call at 12:05 a.m. Goodwin explained that the GPS coordinates showed that McKissic’s phone traveled north and reached the main gate to the Combat Center at 12:19 a.m. A dark-colored Toyota 4Runner, similar to one owned by Mihlbachler, entered the gate at 12:19 a.m.
The last GPS coordinates of McKissic’s phone showed it was in front of barracks 1412, where Aikens lived. Deputies did not receive this information for about a week, so by the time they searched the dumpsters near the barracks on March 30, they did not find the phone.
Detectives also served a search warrant for Aikens’ phone, looking for GPS coordinates, calls and texts made, etc. However, when they received the phone, they discovered that the phone had been “wiped.” All data and locations prior to March 27, 2017, had been removed from the phone. Goodwin explained that the end user (the phone’s owner) can access and delete this information.
Court recessed at 2:53 p.m.
