Cherish McCullough was 19 when she was booked and charged with first-degree murder. Her case could soon swirl with controversy over a community’s value of human life.
McCullough has pleaded not guilty of stabbing 27-year-old LaShanda Callaway after an argument in a convenience store at 2601 N. Hillside. At her trial, which begins next week, the public is expected to see for the first time a security video of the stabbing that raised concerns beyond the crime itself.
Soon after Callaway’s death on June 24, 2007, Wichita police chief Norman Williams told Eagle columnist Mark McCormick that the video showed people continuing to shop, some even snapping cell-phone pictures of the fallen woman.
Jury selection is expected to start Monday. Richard Ney will represent McCullough for the defense. C.J. Rieg is prosecuting.
Cowley County District Judge Jim Pringle admitted it’s won’t be easy deciding if he will admit wrenching testimony from women who say Justin Thurber followed them, harassed them and molested them for years before Jodi Sanderholm’s killing.
“This would make a law school professor lethal, licking his chops about what questions he could put on a law exam,” Pringle said of the 17 different decisions ahead of him.
Prosecutors are seeking to admit the testimony at Thurber’s capital murder trial, of what’s usually known as “prior bad acts.” Usually, that kind of testimony is inadmissible, but under Kansas law it can be permitted under certain circumstances.
Those include:
- If evidence shows a pattern of behavior consistent with the crimes being charged
- If it relates to an important aspect of a case.
- It is valuable in helping to understand a case.
Thurber’s public defenders argue the testimony isn’t relevant to Sanderholm’s death.