After going cold for 16 years, Victoria Hollingsworth’s case required just two days of testimony.
Prosecutors wrapped up the state’s murder case against Adolphus Hollingsworth, her husband, just a day and a half after opening arguments. The defendant chose not to testify, and his defense team rested without calling witnesses. A jury will begin deliberations this morning.
The quick turnaround shocked Kujorah Beasley, the victim’s daughter.
“For real?” she said outside the courtroom. “Already?”
During closing arguments, Assistant District Attorney General Lance Pope asked the jury to recall testimony of witnesses he said pointed to Hollingsworth’s guilt.
“This is a straightforward case of rage, fury and jealousy,” Pope said.
Prosecutors alleged that Adolphus Hollingsworth stabbed his wife in the neck early on Aug. 18, 1997, as she took him to work in her Ford Mustang. They said he buried her body under tires on Billy Goat Hill in East Chattanooga and drove her car back to her parents’ house.
One key piece of evidence was brush taken from her car’s bumper. University of Tennessee at Chattanooga botanist Dr. Gene Van Horn identified it as being from the same species of bush that investigators found in Adolphus Hollingsworth’s yard. Forensic investigators testified that tire tracks in his yard led to that bush.
A microanalysis expert from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation testified that a gasoline-like substance was found in Hollingsworth’s car, though the medical examiner said no evidence of burning was found on her remains.
Also suspicious, Pope said, was Adolphus Hollingsworth’s purchase of a new truck on the day his wife went missing.
“You buy a new truck because you know she’s never, ever going to give you a ride again,” Pope said.
The state worked to establish Adolphus Hollingsworth’s jealousy and history of violence. Three witnesses, including the victim’s son, testified that he physically harmed or threatened to harm her in their presence.
“It’s proof of what his intentions are for Vicki,” Pope said. “It’s proof that he has made up in his mind that he’s going to cause her harm.”
Defense attorneys attacked the involvement of the TNT show “Cold Justice,” which paid for testing of DNA samples in 2010 that they argued should have been tested from the beginning.
“Ladies and gentlemen, you are all a part of a TV show,” Assistant District Public Defender Manzura Talipova told the jury in her closing arguments.
Chattanooga police Sgt. Bill Phillips, who worked the case in 1997 and is now head of the city’s cold case unit, said the show contacted the department to ask for cases to feature on the show. He saw it as an opportunity to finally solve the case, he said.
“It just struck me as, ‘Hey, these are the resources I’ve been waiting on all these years,'” Phillips said.
“Cold Justice” paid to have a carpet sample with blood from the right front floor of Victoria Hollingsworth’s Mustang sent to a private laboratory called Sorenson Forensics. The sample matched a swab of DNA taken from her daughter.
Police investigator Justin Kilgore testified that he was the first to interview the victim’s son, Wesley Carr, in 2010. Carr testified Tuesday that he saw his stepfather pour gasoline on his mother’s face a month before she went missing. Prosecutors asked why that interview wasn’t conducted earlier.
The interview and the swatches from the victim’s Mustang were tested after Kilgore re-examined the case in 2010, partly because “Cold Justice” would pay for the tests and speed them along, Kilgore said, in comparison to the slower TBI crime lab.
“I would equate it to working a case where somebody has decided to put up a lot of money for information,” Kilgore later told District Attorney General Neal Pinkston.
An expert from Sorenson testified that the show doesn’t interpret results in a way that helps the show, but Brown pointed out that the lab does advertise its partnership with the show on its website.
Talipova said jurors should suspect the show’s involvement and that, despite forensic evidence presented by the state, they should note that nothing directly ties Adolphus Hollingsworth to the killing. None of his fingerprints or blood were found in her car at all, she said.
“Someone is guilty,” Talipova said, “but it is not Mr. Hollingsworth.”
Contact staff writer Claire Wiseman at cwiseman@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6347. Follow her on Twitter@clairelwiseman.