Friday saw closing arguments in the murder trial of Edrick Faust; the man accused of killing University of Georgia law student Tara Baker in 2001. The defense and prosecution rested their cases.
Prosecutor Kalki Yalamanchili described the nature of the crime.
“On January 19th of 200, Tara Baker was taken out of this world,” Yalamanchili said. “Her life extinguished by the defendant in this case, Edrick Lamont Faust. Mr. Faust entered Tara’s home and caught her as she was going through her morning routine. He stabbed her, brutally bashed her head, and strangled her as he forcibly raped her, sodomized her orally, and sodomized her anally.”
He said he accepted the state’s burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Defense attorney Ahmad Crews asked the jury to consider what constitutes reasonable doubt, without violating their oaths as jurors.
“A reasonable doubt is based upon common sense and reason…,” Crews said. “Let me make that clear, some other people that have not been mentioned in this case, some other people in another country, aliens, animals, whatever. That is not a reasonable doubt, because that wouldn’t be based upon common sense and reason. But if you can state one reason, one reason, a reason to doubt the state’s case, your verdict must be not guilty."
The jury will begin deliberating the case on Monday.
