UPDATE: 939 the Eagle’s Brian Hauswirth reports Columbia double murder suspect Cadilac Derrick is testifying in his own defense this morning. Brian reports Derrick testified that his girlfriend threatened to kill him before and that she also stabbed him and tried to run him over. Derrick also testifies he sent threats to her as well, telling her she would die. He says he didn’t mean it.
HERE IS OUR ORIGINAL STORY:
A Boone County jury will hear from more prosecution witnesses Thursday morning in a high-profile Columbia double murder trial.
Jury selection took six hours Tuesday in 37-year-old Cadilac Derrick’s trial. He is charged in Boone County with two counts of first degree murder and four other felonies for the November 2022 deaths of 22-year-old Lea’johna Sanders and 53-year-old Laura Myers.
939 the Eagle News was back in the courtroom Wednesday for day two of the trial: Derrick wore a dark suit, blue dress shirt and red tie. Moberly police officer Nate West, who arrested Derrick in the Magic City after the 2022 murders, took the witness stand. The jury and courtroom spectators watched body camera footage of Derrick speaking to Moberly police after calling them and saying he needed to turn himself in. Derrick told Moberly police that night at a Conoco gas station that his girlfriend, Sanders, tried to kill him and that he shot her in self-defense. Derrick also indicated that Sanders accidentally shot her mother that night.
Court documents say that Derrick and Sanders had an infant son, and say Sanders called 911 in November 2022 to say Derrick had been abusing her. Sanders told the dispatcher that Derrick would not leave her house and that he told her if she didn’t stay with him, he was going to kill her and her mother. That 911 call was played in open court on Tuesday, and the jury could hear multiple gunshots on the tape.
Boone County assistant prosecutor Risa Perkins told the jury in opening statements that Derrick had repeatedly threatened to kill Sanders and had once threatened to “blow her head off.” Defense attorney Joseph Whitener tells the jury that Sanders and Myers were killed in self-defense. Counselor Whitener tells the jury that both women were intoxicated that night, and that this is not and never was a murder case.
The trial could continue into Friday.
