[May 22, 2013] Jury reads Janet Abaroa's emails to ex-boyfriend Tweet DURHAM, May 22, 2013 (The Herald-Sun - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- The defense of Raven Abaroa began in earnest Tuesday as the jury was allowed to read emails that Janet Abaroa sent to her ex-boyfriend in the month before her death. Raven Abaroa, 33, is on trial for first-degree murder in the stabbing death of his wife, Janet Marie Christiansen Abaroa, 25, on Aug. 26, 2005, at their home on Ferrand Drive. The first witness for the defense was Jason McCullough, a digital forensics examiner, who testified that he found emails between Janet Abaroa and her ex-boyfriend, Scott Hall, on Janet's work computer. A copy of the computer's contents had been locked in a cabinet at the Durham Police Department since the summer or fall of 2005 and was only discovered last Thursday morning. He received a copy of it Thursday evening and began his examination using search words, such as Scott Hall, Raven and the names of friends and family members of Janet Abaroa. McCullough read fragments of emails that Janet and Hall exchanged. The purpose of presenting the emails as evidence, according to defense attorney Amos Tyndall, was to show a different portrait of Raven and Janet Abaroa than the one prosecutors painted, depicting Raven as controlling and abusive and Janet as timid and having no will of her own. In some emails, Janet wrote that she could be honest with her husband about seeing her old boyfriend and in other emails she seemed more secretive. Hall appeared to believe that Raven Abaroa wouldn't mind if Janet saw him. "I was just under the impression that Raven didn't care about anything," Hall wrote. "Perhaps with me it would bug him. But if he's completely ok with you hooking up with other dudes then just make it easy on him and tell him we are." Later under cross-examination, Assistant District Attorney Charlene Coggins-Franks asked McCullough to read a sentence from the emails that the defense had not asked McCullough to read to the jury. It was an email from Janet in which she wrote about hanging out with Hall. "I don't think he would care if something happened," Janet's email said. "He just has a really weird request. He wants me to videotape it so he can watch. Since most guys wouldn't do that, I don't ever see getting together with someone." Defense attorney Mani Dexter also led McCullough through computer files of photographs taken at the crime scene. One by one, she asked McCullough when the photographs were taken. It showed that someone from the Durham Police Department took photographs of the crime scene in a somewhat random order. Photos of a blood spot on the bathroom floor, for example, were taken after photographs were shot of Janet's bloody body on the office floor. Photographs of the interior of the Durango that Raven Abaroa drove that night were shot on June 10, 2005. Some photos, including several that showed the dirt driveway of the Abaroa home were shot 11 months after her death, according to McCullough. McCullough also testified that he analyzed several CDs that showed the last activity on Raven Abaroa's laptop computer was the night before Janet's death, when someone posted four baby photographs of their baby Kaiden on a website called Ravens Tree. Coggins-Franks aggressively cross-examined McCullough, asking why he didn't include various details in his report. He repeatedly said he had only limited time to do the examination or that was all he found in his search. Later in the day, defense attorney Tyndall recalled Leo Farmer to the stand. Farmer lived next door to the Abaoras and testified that he was working outside in his garden until about 8:30 on the night Janet was murdered. No, he didn't hear anything unusual that night from the Abaroa home while he was outside, he said. Farmer also testified that the people who lived in the home before the Abaroas often fought, and he heard "one person doing lots of screaming." After the Abaroas moved into the house, it was quiet, and he never heard anything from them, Farmer said. Previously in the trial, another neighbor testified that she often heard Raven and Janet Abaroa arguing loudly. The trial is scheduled to resume at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday. ___ (c)2013 The Herald-Sun (Durham, N.C.) Visit The Herald-Sun (Durham, N.C.) at www.heraldsun.com Distributed by MCT Information Services [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]