Waddell's family members testify in death penalty trial

May 1—Family members of Robin Waddell testified Wednesday in the 413th District Court and jurors heard jail phone calls made by Jerry Elders, the man convicted of murdering Waddell.

Jurors earlier the same day heard testimony of Elders' previous convictions, probations and jail sentences for earlier crimes involving drugs, theft and other offenses.

Jurors last week found Elders guilty of capital murder for the April 14, 2021, kidnapping and shooting death of Waddell.

Elders' trial, which began April 15, remains ongoing now in the punishment phase. Having found Elders guilty, jurors must now decide whether he should be sentenced to life in prison without parole or receive the death penalty.

Elders, in the early morning hours of April 14, 2021, three times shot Burleson Police Officer Joshua Lott after Lott conducted a traffic stop for a defective brake light on Elders' vehicle.

Lott survived.

Elders sped from the scene with two passengers in tow. All three abandoned the vehicle a short distance away after it caught fire. Elders wandered onto Waddell's nearby property and took refuge in one of her farm trucks. When confronted by Waddell, Elders forced her to drive him out of the county in her truck. Waddell, while in the commission of doing so, crashed her truck through the gates of the Joshua Police Department's parking lot. Elders then twice shot Waddell and fled the scene in her truck. Waddell collapsed and died near the police department's back door.

Elders made his way to Gainesville where he was located and arrested later that same day.

Phillip Waddell, Waddell's son, testified Tuesday of his mother's love and support for him growing up and of her great love for her grandchildren.

"She was my answer to everything basically," Waddell answered when asked what he misses most about his mother. "If I had a problem I'd go to her for small things to just everything. She guided me through life."

Phillip Waddell spoke of his grandfather, Robin Waddell's father, who at 88 in 2021 was bedridden and wheelchair confined.

"My grandfather was living with mom and she took care of his day-to-day needs," Phillip Waddell said. "That was the plan. He was to live with her the rest of his life, but he only lived about a year after she was killed."

Phillip Waddell, who lives on the same property as his mother, spoke too of how his father's 2018 passing from cancer delivered a devastating blow to his mother and the rest of the family.

"My dad's last words to me were, 'Take care of your mom.'" Waddell said. "There are days I blame myself for what happened because I live next door. It eats me up everyday."

Robin Waddell's daughter, Patricia Cooke testified that although her mother worked hard all her life she also made time to be in her and her brother's lives. Cooke spoke of her mother's love for her grandchildren and animals of all kind.

Cooke spoke of the fear her mother's murder instilled in her children.

"The fallout is they thought for a while the bad guy was coming to get them and they didn't feel safe any more," Cooke said.

Cooke also spoke of regrets over things not said between her and her mother.

"You always think that you have more time and I learned the hardest lesson, that you don't always have more time to work things out and have a conversation. You just don't know how much time you have."

Elders, in jail phone conversations played for jurors by Johnson County Assistant District Attorney Matthew Staton, several times talked openly of shooting Lott and Waddell.

"I shot the cop cause I was tired of them [expletive deleted] with me," Elders said in one call. "I told you I was going to shoot a cop."

Jeremy Brewer, one of the passengers in Elders' vehicle at the time of Lott's shooting, testified earlier in the trial that, as Lott approached the vehicle during the traffic stop, Elders told him that he was going to shoot the cop seconds before doing so.

Prosecutors also introduced evidence of Elders' multiple tattoos one of which shows a pig in a police uniform hanging from a meat hook and the words [Expletive deleted] the law.

Elders responds "Yeah" during one phone conversation when asked if he was high during the shootings adding that he was on methamphetamine and mushrooms.

During the same conversation, the other party tells Elders he should have left Waddell alone since she didn't do anything to him.

"I asked her to take me out of Johnson County and she pulled up into the police station is why I shot her," Elders replied.

Elders asks for money during a call to his sister.

"No, you killed an innocent lady," his sister replied.

Elders during another call was asked why he didn't simply take Waddell's truck and leave her behind.

"She didn't want me taking her truck," Elders replied. "Here I am being nice or whatever you want to call it. You're right. I should just taken her truck.

"But I guess if she's going with me I don't have to worry about her calling the police. I'll get further away with her with me.

"If I leave her and thake her truck she's going to report it right then and ther. But, if she goes with me, I'll get all the way out of the county and before she leaves or whatever I'll have a head start."

Told in another call that Lott was innocent in everything, Elders disagrees.

"No, he is not," Elders said. "I'm not saying I had a right to [shoot him]."

Elders went on to say that because it was Lott's job to protect and serve the public he should have, after being shot, tried to protect the passengers in Elders' vehicle or shot his tires out.

Logic the caller tells Elders few others are likely to agree with.

"He spent a couple of hours in the hospital," Elders replied. "He had a scratch on his neck from a piece of glass."

Evidence presented earlier in the trial showed Lott's injuries to be substantially more serious than the graze of flying glass.

Lot expressed regret over having run out of bullets.

"I thought the bullets I had were like armor piercing rounds or whatever and they were hollow point and they weren't coming out," Elders said in another call. "So once they went in they were staying in. That's why there was no blood like with the lady and all that. Once they go in they explode inside, you know."

While talking about reading John Grisham and Stephen King books in jail, Elders laughs during another phone call while talking of reading a book on lethal injection.

"I want to know what's going on," Elders said. "Like how long it takes. Does it hurt? Is it going to burn?"

Elders in another call talks about tablets issued to inmates.

"Music and movies and [expletive deleted] on their tablets," Elders said with a laugh. "Some places have them, some don't Go there and watch movies."

Elders spoke of having watched body camera video from Lott's uniform. The video shows Lott getting shot and Elders' vehicle fleeing the scene before another officer arrives on scene and transports Lott to John Peter Smith Hospital.

"I take off, he's cussing," Elders said. "He walks behind his car, fires one shot and calls to say, 'I'm shot.'

"Then [the video] shows him all the way going to the hospital."

Elders laughs several times during that call while talking in imitation voices of Lott and the officer driving the car.

"It's not funny but he's going, 'Oh, I'm going to pass out. It burns. It burns,'" Elders said. "The other cop's like, 'Hang in there brother. You're a [expletives deleted]. Hang in there.'

"And I'm like, [Expletive deleted] I don't know why I thought that was so funny. I guess [Lott], uh, I shot him in the neck. He's got a bullet lodged in his spine. I shot him in the chest, too, but it's too dangerous to take it out or whatever. It's not hurting anything."

Elders during the same call talks again about shooting Waddell.

"The first shot killed," Elders said. "It went through and lodged like by her heart. I shot her in the back, too."

During the final call played for jurors Elders talks about the Fisher Price farm animal toy for children, which makes the noise associated with that animal when the arrow is pointed to it.

"Got the arrow on it and you pull the chain and it's like, 'This is the sound of a duck, quack, quack," Elders said.

Elders asks the other person on the call what sound the pig makes to which the caller says, "Oink?"

"No," Elders answered laughing. "Freeze [expletive deleted]. Get out with your hands up."

With that, the state rested their case.