COVINGTON, Ga. — The woman driving the car with the parents of a missing girl inside testified at their murder trial Thursday that father Christopher McNabb didn't ask if his baby was alive when they learned the girl had been found.
The girl, two-week-old Caliyah McNabb, was found dead in the woods not far from the home of father Christopher McNabb and mother Cortney Bell in Oct. 2017.
Lauren Mackey was driving a car with McNabb and Bell inside the day after Caliyah went missing. She testified that as Bell heard the news, it set off a chaotic scene, with "everybody screaming" and McNabb jumping out of the car and running.
Mackey, who broke down in tears at one point during her testimony, described the moment in the car when a group learned that Caliyah had been found. Pamela Hamby, Bell's mother, also was in the car and outlined some of that moment in testimony a day earlier.
Mackey said there was "just a lot of yelling" and that she was trying to shout down everyone else urging McNabb to leave the car.
"I do remember Chris saying that they're gonna take him to jail, I do remember him saying that," Mackey testified. "I do remember everybody freaking out cause Chris was scared about going to jail."
She said panic broke out despite it not yet being clear if the news about Caliyah was actually bad or not.
"I had no idea, I thought the baby was alive," Mackey said. "No one said the baby was dead or alive."
An employee at the gas station where McNabb fled also testified Thursday morning, saying the father swore he didn't do it and promised "y'all are gonna be surprised."
Bell's cousin Craig Weatherford also testified, speaking about his drug use with the parents the night before Caliyah disappeared and describing their activity and demeanor in the hours after she went missing.
BACKGROUND:
THE TRIAL:
DAY 1:
DAY 2:
'Some things were overlooked': Attorneys spar over evidence on Day 2 in trial of 2-week-old's murder
Julie Hannah, the employee at a Chevron where McNabb arrived after leaving the car, said he was "real wet and nasty" after coming in from running through the woods.
She also said the first time she saw him was actually the night before. McNabb and Bell had come in and asked that she or other employees call police if they saw anyone with a baby that didn't appear to be theirs.
The next day, she described him as "hyper" as he showed up in the gas station store.
"He came in, he said, 'I been running.' I said, 'Why?' He goes, 'The cops are on my trail,' or on my heels or something, and he said, 'I got out of the car and ran,'" Hannah testified. "And I said, 'Why?' He said, 'That was my baby,' and then it dawned on me he's the guy from the night before."
She said he repeatedly proclaimed his innocence.
"He said, 'I didn't do it, I didn't do it, I swear I didn't do it.' I said, 'Then you need to tell them,'" Hannah testified. "He said, 'Y'all are gonna be surprised.' I said I'm not gonna be surprised, but if you didn't do it, and you know who did, you need to tell it.'"
It isn't clear what McNabb ever meant by that comment.
Katherine Wesley, a customer in the store, also testified that McNabb came in and exclaimed: "I'm telling everybody in this store that I didn't do it."
Weatherford's testimony, which followed, touched on the events from the night before Caliyah went missing to fewer than 48 hours later when her body was found.
"We all smoked a bowl. We smoked meth," he said of the night prior to the infant's disappearance.
He said he saw Caliyah that evening, and that she "looked fine, sleeping good."
The next night, after her disappearance, he said McNabb and Bell stayed with him and his fiancee, Diane. He said they tried to mount a small search effort, going to the houses of people who had recently been at the McNabb home, but that the parents didn't seem very invested in it.
The next day, before Caliyah was found, Weatherford said he woke up with an "eerie feeling" and took McNabb and Bell to get coffee.
He said he tried to describe his "bad feeling" to McNabb, who reacted defensively.
"Chris was my best friend at the time, me and him was close, and he told me, he was like, 'Craig I can't believe out of anybody you would think I killed the baby,'" Weatherford testified.
When McNabb's defense attorney, Anthony Carter, pressed Weatherford to clarify this conversation - saying McNabb's response "wasn't out of the blue" and that "you asked him, 'Did you kill your child?'" - he said he actually was only speaking generally.
"I didn't say, 'Did you kill your child?' I was insinuating that somebody did something," he said.
He also said that on the morning Caliyah was found dead, Cortney Bell "wanted to stop at Pam's and get high."
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