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Investigators detail evidence in fatal shootings on second day of Shane James trial – CBS Austin

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Crime Scene Testimony Details South Austin Killings in Shane James Capital Murder Trial

First responders and forensic investigators detailed the harrowing chronology of a Central Texas shooting spree as the capital murder trial of Shane James entered its second day in Austin, Texas. Friday morning testimony centered squarely on Shadywood Drive in South Austin, where victims Sabrina Rahman and Emmanuel Pop Ba were fatally shot just before noon on December 5, 2023, CBS Austin reported.

Prosecutors presented nine witnesses to the jury, including a paramedic, forensic scientists, a medical examiner, and a detective, building a meticulous physical record of the violence that shook the region.

From First Response to Forensic Evidence

Jordan Malone, an Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Services paramedic, took the stand to describe arriving at the Shadywood Drive scene shortly after noon. He found both victims motionless on the ground. Paramedics managed to temporarily restore a pulse to Rahman on the scene before intubating her and rushing her to an ambulance. Malone later responded to a second, connected crime scene on Austral Loop that same evening.

Jasmin Arevalo, a forensic scientist for the City of Austin, walked the courtroom through photographic evidence recovered from the neighborhood. The exhibits included shell casings left behind on Shadywood Drive. Ballistics analysis matched those casings directly to rounds recovered from a shooting earlier that morning at Northeast Early College High School.

Another photograph presented to the jury showed an abandoned stroller resting quietly just down the street from where Rahman, a young mother, fought for her life.

Video Surveillance and Medical Examiner Findings

According to prosecutors, the chain of events on Shadywood Drive began when James shot Pop Ba and stole his vehicle. The assailant then drove a short distance before stopping several houses down to shoot Rahman.

Security footage played in court captured a man walking through the residential neighborhood in the minutes leading up to the gunfire. A separate home security clip recorded the street at the precise moment of the attacks. That footage shows a green SUV speeding off, stopping abruptly a few houses away, and a person scrambling out of frame to get back into the vehicle. Another camera angle revealed the same SUV turning around seconds later with a shattered passenger window. An Austin police officer testified that law enforcement later located the abandoned SUV in a nearby bank parking lot.

A deputy medical examiner reviewed autopsy photographs detailing the fatal gunshot wounds to the heads of both Rahman and Pop Ba.

The Travis County trial is scheduled to resume Monday morning.

More on this story: Shane James capital murder trial proceeds after competency hearing

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