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INVESTIGATIVE UNIT: Defense team wins access to 19 videos from Madison Brooks' final hours, seeks more

10 months 1 week 6 days ago Thursday, January 11 2024 Jan 11, 2024 January 11, 2024 1:34 PM January 11, 2024 in News
Source: WBRZ

UPDATE: One of the suspects who recorded videos prior to Madison Brooks' death, Casen Carver, was charged with video voyeurism and was arrested Thursday.

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An East Baton Rouge Parish judge Thursday ordered prosecutors to give defense lawyers copies of 19 videos recorded by two men the night Madison Brooks was killed after leaving a Tigerland bar, but she reserved judgment on whether the attorneys should have access to nearly a dozen more recordings that may show obscene material.

Since Brooks died last January, prosecutors and defense lawyers have clashed over access to evidence as they try to map out what happened in the hours before the LSU student's death. Prosecutors say the woman was raped, but defense lawyers say there is insufficient evidence. The WBRZ Investigative Unit reported exclusively last year that a coroner's report found no DNA evidence inside Brooks' body. 

The current dispute is over several recordings made by defendants Casen Carver and Kaivon Washington after they left the bar with Brooks and two other men last January. 

Prosecutors say Brooks was raped in the back seat of the vehicle and then abandoned in a neighborhood off Burbank Drive, where she later was struck by a car and suffered fatal injuries. One of Carver's lawyers, Joseph J. Long, sought copies of 30 videos recorded by the two men, saying they would help clear his client.

"They're saying my client aided and abetted. He didn't do anything," Long said. "My client is in the front seat."

Prosecutors had objected to releasing any of the videos to the defense, saying they included obscene material and should be considered contraband that cannot be legally possessed by anyone. Judge Gail Horne Ray ordered the state to review the 30 videos and redact any obscene material. 

Long said Ray on Thursday told prosecutors to release 19 of the recordings. A hearing will be held on what, if any, material could be released from the remaining 11 videos.

"None of these shows intercourse. You can see some shadowy motions," Long said.

Brooks and the four men had been drinking at Reggie's in Tigerland last Jan. 15 before she left the bar with them. Carver, Washington and Desmond Carter each face a first-degree rape charge. The fourth man, Everett Lee, was arrested on a third-degree rape count but hasn't been formally charged.

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