(Photo: Davis County Jail)
DAVIS COUNTY – A North Salt Lake man accused of killing his mother and live-streaming videos of the crime scene is officially charged. However, the videos he reportedly posted may actually pose some problems for prosecutors.
Jeffrey Langford was charged with first-degree murder and second-degree obstruction of justice in the 2nd District Court. He’s accused of killing his mother, Graciela Holker, then posting three different videos on Facebook Live. Those videos have since been taken down.
Some analysts say getting these videos admitted into evidence won’t be very easy. Former prosecutor Kent Morgan, who is not involved in this case, has seen videos reportedly made by other people accused of horrific crimes, and those videos have been much more difficult to be admitted. Morgan says defense teams come with everything they have to get videos like that thrown out.
Morgan says, “Very likely, there will be a pre-trial motion, a defense motion, to exclude the evidence for being prejudicial.”
Also, Morgan says there’s a chance the videos may have tainted the jury pool, depending on how many people saw them.
“[Jurors are] likely to be preempted by either the prosecution or the defense as people who can’t make a decision based solely on the evidence,” he says.
In one of the videos, Langford reportedly states his mother shot herself in the head but she didn’t die from that injury. Charging documents say Langford claimed he was going to have to “finish it.” If that’s true, Morgan says that brings up and entirely different question.
He asks, “Does that mean whenever anybody assists somebody in committing suicide… are they murderers?” Morgan also says, “I think it’s going to get more and more complex the closer they get to trial.”
Charging documents say Holker was shot in the head three times, and at least two of them are not consistent with being self-inflicted.