Marine murder retrial focuses on surveillance video and DNA

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WTVQ) — A jailhouse phone call between the suspect in a Marine’s murder and his wife played today in court.

26-year-old Jonathan Price was killed in Lexington outside Austin City Saloon in 2014 while celebrating his wife’s birthday.

The accused killer, Dawan Mulazim, is on trial again because a jury last year couldn’t reach a verdict.

Mulazim isn’t just on trial for the murder charge, but also for a robbery a month later.

Wednesday, police further tried to connect the aftermath of that robbery to the murder with surveillance video and a phone call between Mulazim and his wife, Sholanda.

She was arrested after the robbery her husband is accused of, for tampering with physical evidence.

Lead detective Franz Wolff says she’s accused of throwing away items in Mulazim’s car stolen in that robbery.

Also found in a nearby dumpster was a Yankees baseball cap with a box of ammunition sitting in it that officers say is connected to Price’s murder.

In court Wednesday, we listened to a jailhouse phone call she made to Mulazim after she was arrested.

“and I just said I don’t know ***. So they charged me with tampering with physical evidence they said some about a phone call saying you said I threw something away,” says Sholanda Mulazim.

Defense attorneys argued the parts of the call prosecutors chose to play. didn’t give a full picture of what that call was about. They say the parts we didn’t hear reveal Sholanda was kicking her husband out and that’s why she was throwing away his things.

We also saw a lot of surveillance video Wednesday from the night of Price’s murder, showing a man in a Yankees cap, like the one found after the robbery, going through a liquor store drive-through near Austin City Saloon.

A DNA analyst testified she tested that hat found in the dumpster and found Mulazim’s DNA on it. She says she didn’t find his DNA on Price’s body or clothing, though.

Dr. Meredith Frank from the State Medical Examiner’s Office, who performed the autopsy on Price, testified she couldn’t determine how close the killer was to Price when he was shot or the position he was in at the time.

The lead detective says he showed Mulazim’s sister the liquor store video and she identified the man in it as her brother.

The defense had questions about time code differences between two different surveillance camera angles implying the video might show two different cars, meaning Mulazim wouldn’t have been the only one around the saloon.

The trial is scheduled to pick back up Thursday morning and we should hear closing arguments then.