Prosecution rests Friday in Kaufman murder trial
Davidson County, Tenn., prosecutors rested their case Friday, Jan. 27, against the two men charged with first degree murder in the December 2020 shooting death of Butler County native Caitlyn Kaufman.
Prosecutors presented 17 witnesses in their effort to prove that DeVaunte Hill, 23, and James Cowan, 29, both of Tennessee, killed Kaufman in a fit of road rage on Dec. 3 after she cut them off while she was driving to work at St. Thomas West Hospital, where she worked as an intensive care nurse.
After the district attorney’s office rested, Judge Angelita Dalton denied motions from the defense attorneys for both men to dismiss the charges.
The prosecution contends that Cowan was driving while Hill fired six shots from a 9 mm handgun at Kaufman. She died in her SUV on the shoulder of Interstate 440 in Nashville, moments after one of the bullets struck her in both lungs and her heart, according to testimony.
Jury selection took place Monday and Tuesday. Testimony began Wednesday after attorneys made opening statements, which included the public defender representing Hill saying that Hill was the shooter while Cowan was driving.
On Friday, the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department’s detective Chad Gish testified that neither of the defendants’ cellphones was equipped with GPS, but he was able to retrieve text messages from Hill’s phone and Cowan’s girlfriend’s phone. He said Cowan had three phones, but one has not been located.
At 7:37 p.m. Dec. 3, about an hour and a half after police believe the shooting occurred, someone used Hill’s phone to search for news about a shooting in Nashville, Gish said.
GPS data collected from Kaufman’s phone revealed that it came to stop at 6:08 p.m., he said.
That search was made before police found Kaufman in her vehicle and knew a shooting had taken place, he said.
A search on Hill’s phone found a news article at 2:23 a.m. Dec. 4 about a nurse being killed on I-440, Gish said.
A message sent from Cowan’s girlfriend’s phone to Cowan’s phone at 6:29 p.m. Dec. 3 said she was waiting outside of her workplace located near the crime scene, waiting for him to pick her up, Gish said.
The girlfriend’s phone also had photos of Cowan with a rented Cadillac SUV that police believe he was driving during the incident, he said.
That vehicle was found in a fire on Dec. 12. The license plate visible in the photo was found on the ground near the vehicle after the fire was extinguished, according to previous testimony.
Gish said searches for news articles about Kaufman’s death also were found on the girlfriend’s phone.
GPS data from Kaufman’s phone showed her vehicle was traveling at 71 mph until it starts to slow down at 6:08.41 and comes to a stop at 6:08.59, Gish said. Three bullet shell casings were found near where her SUV started to slow down, he said.
Under cross examination, Gish said the phone of informant Jacques Merrell-Odom was used at least twice on Dec. 10 to search for information about the reward that was being offered for information about Kaufman’s death.
Merrell-Odom, who testified Wednesday, said he didn’t find information about the reward, and tried unsuccessfully to reach Kaufman’s mother through social media. On Dec. 10, he went to the hospital where Kaufman worked and told a nurse that he had information about her death.
That led to Merrell-Odom cooperating with police.
Merrell-Odom said that on Dec. 6 Hill told him that he wanted to get rid of his Springfield 9 mm handgun. Merrell-Odom said he traded his Smith and Wesson .40-caliber handgun to Hill in exchange for the Springfield.
Later on Dec. 6, Merrell-Odom said Hill then showed him a news article on his cellphone about Kaufman's shooting and told him that he shot her. He said Hill told him that Kaufman nearly hit the Cadillac SUV that he was riding in with Cowan, and “he thought it was somebody else and shot up the car.”
The final prosecution witness was Andrew Vallee, a special agent with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.
He testified that cellphone towers tracked the exact location of Kaufman’s phone, which was equipped with GPS, and tracked the general location of Cowan’s phone.
Kaufman’s phone was tracked minute by minute from 6:01 p.m. Dec. 3 on a highway leading to I-440 until it stopped moving, and Cowan’s phone was nearby at the same times, Vallee said.
