The jury heard intense closing arguments; the defense pleaded with jurors; it tried to make clear what the law says about self-defense and mistake of fact.
Jurors were brought back to the defendant's medical school training and education. A former co-worker and close friend of Yazeed Essa testified against him. Dr. Scott Felten confirmed that in studying to be an ER doctor, medical students learned about cyanide poisoning. Apparently, this was the same method prosecutors claimed Yazeed used to kill his wife, Rosemarie.
The ER doctor and good friend of Yazeed Essa was under cross-examination. The two learned about cyanide poisoning as medical school residents. Prosecutors wanted to link the defendant's knowledge of the poison to the death of his wife, Rosemarie. Next, jurors heard from the victim's OB-GYN. She confirmed the supplements she was taking at the time she died.
Dr. Yazeed Essa is alleged to have poisoned his wife, Rosemarie Essa, to death with cyanide. Essa fled the country when he became a suspect, prompting an international manhunt. He was arrested in Cyprus and extradited back to the U.S. to stand trial.
The defendant's cousins testified against him. The first one stressed at how he didn't know Yazeed Essa was planning to leave the U.S. after allegedly poisoning his wife to death. The second cousin claimed the defendant would be too dumb to poison Rosemarie with cyanide. This cousin admitted to cooperating with prosecutors to testify in exchange for a plea deal of a federal criminal charge.
Ed Dossett and David Leath were friends with a lot in common; both were well-known around Knoxville, both married the same woman and both turned up dead under suspicious circumstances.
When a fire breaks out in Krystina Sutherland's apartment building, the first suspect is her ex-boyfriend, Charles Loayza; after all, he had threatened to burn it down earlier that day.
On Halloween 1999, Dirk Greineder found his wife, Mabel, brutally beaten in their neighborhood park; when Greineder's account didn't fit with the evidence, investigators took a closer look at him; what they found suggested he had plenty to hide.