“Is that what you normally do? Leave the garage door open?”
“Usually. Yes. And that morning, like I said, Tom’s car was still in the garage. I just thought he was maybe running late.”
“Okay. So after you ran out through the garage, what happened? What did you do?”
“I was just crazy in my head. Panicked. I might have still been screaming. Because one of the neighbors saw me. Mr. Kinney. He lives across the street and one house over. He was in his own driveway. He had his little white dog with him, taking it to go potty on the front lawn. I ran straight at him. I don’t really remember what I said. But I got enough out so that Mr. Kinney took out his cell phone and we called 911.”
“Okay. Did you see Mrs. Loomis again after that?”
“I never went back into that house. I wanted to drive away. Mr. Kinney took me into his house. He waited with me until the cops arrived. It couldn’t have been even five minutes later. They came to Mr. Kinney’s house first. I told them again what I saw. What I just told you. Then another crew showed up and the two crews went to the Loomis house. Then another set of cops showed up and took me with them back to the sheriff’s so I could explain again what I saw. Somebody went in and got my purse and stuff sometime later, because they brought it to me at thepolice station.”
“Okay, do the Loomises have any security cameras at the house?”
“No.”
“Are you aware whether the neighbors do?”
“I became aware, yes. The neighbor directly across the street. I was later shown a video from it by the police.”
After a small procedural dance, Quick entered the neighbor’s security footage from the morning of the murder into evidence.
“Can you explain what I’m seeing?” he asked Jenna as the video played. The timestamp ran at the bottom left of the screen.
“That’s me coming into work.”
The video had no sound, but showed Jenna pulling into the driveway in her black Mazda. She exited the vehicle, fumbled with her cleaning tote, balancing it on her hip as she went to the garage and punched in the code. You could see the garage door raise. Jenna went inside and disappeared. It was 5:52 a.m. on the morning of March 14th.
Her headlights had triggered the motion camera. The video took one full minute of footage. It stopped a few seconds after Jenna disappeared inside Katy and Tom’s house.
There was no footage showing when she ran out of the house. But the neighbor, Rich Kinney, had his own security camera. It captured Jenna running up his driveway at 5:57 a.m.
“Jenna,” Addison said. “Did Katy Loomis say anything to you when you saw her in the bedroom with the knife?”
Jenna shook her head. “Not really to me. She heard me scream. Like I said, she dropped the knife and backed away from thebed. I didn’t stick around. I can’t tell you what she did after that because I was running for my life.”
Addison paused at the lectern. He flipped through his sparse notes.
“Thank you, Ms. Rodney. I appreciate your candor. I have no further questions.”
“Ms. Leary?” Judge Castor motioned me forward to begin my cross-examination.
Chapter 16
“Good morning, Ms. Rodney,”I said.
“I’m sorry,” she interjected. “I’d be more comfortable if you called me Jenna.”
“Of course. Thank you for clarifying. Jenna, then. While it’s still fresh in my mind, I’d like to ask you a follow-up question about something you just said during your answers to Mr. Quick. Specifically, you made a statement that Mrs. Loomis appearedfrozen in placewhen you came to the threshold of the bedroom. Do I have that right?”
“Yes,” she said. “She didn’t move. She didn’t look like she saw me. Not until I screamed. Before that, she just stood there holding that knife.”
“Hmm. But you said you heard moaning. That’s what drew your attention to the area of the bedroom, correct?”
“Right,” she said.
“Who was moaning?”
“I’m not sure.”
