Posted: Wednesday, September 8, 2010 1:17 pm | Updated: 5:16 pm, Wed Sep 8, 2010.
JESSICA COOLEY/The Lufkin Daily News
Day one of the retrial of an Angelina County man accused in the shooting death of his girlfriend began with testimony from the man who found the woman gasping for air.
Just before midnight, March 13, 2004, Kimberly O'Quinn, 21, was found with a bullet wound under her chin in the bedroom of the Tom Hampton Road trailer home she shared with her boyfriend, Jarrard Holland, accused of her death.
Hours before, O'Quinn and Holland had been celebrating his birthday at his parents' house about a mile down the road when they got into argument and O'Quinn left, according to prosecutor Clyde Herrington.
Holland then allegedly followed her to their home and finding that she had shot herself, returned to his parents' home for help, according to his previous testimony.
An acquaintance of Holland's, Gregory Cordova, along with a friend, Patrick Strickland, then went to the trailer home to check on O'Quinn, finding that things "didn't look right," including clumps of hair that led from the front door of the home to the bedroom where O'Quinn was found dying.
"When we got there we saw Kim's car. The passenger door was open and in the back of it I remember seeing some clothes baskets," Cordova said. "Our main focus was to find Kim. We walked in the room and found Kim on the right-hand side of the bed. It was the most horrible thing I'd ever seen in my life. She was shot up under her chin and one of her eyes was all messed up. It had blood in it and she was lying there still breathing."
Realizing O'Quinn was still alive, Cordova's efforts then turned to getting the dying woman help amid his own suspicions about how she got the injury.
"Patrick and I started looking for the phone. I found the phone, but it had been ripped out of the wall. Patrick got my cell phone and called 911, " Cordova recalled. "I told Patrick not to touch anything. There was no way in my mind she could have shot herself and had the gun laying down the center of her like that. "
Cordova then went back to Holland's parents' home after EMS workers arrived to care for O'Quinn.
Lufkin firefighter/paramedic Joe Burton took the stand as the second witness, recalling how he thought O'Quinn's body looked "posed" when he responded to the call originally classified a suicide.
"Her legs were straight out, her arms were beside her and there was a .22 rifle on her chest pointed toward her chin," Burton said. "The way she was laying appeared to be posed because if someone is standing up and they shoot themselves and fall backward, they're not going to fall straight back. They're going to kind of crumple."
Holland's original trial held in October 2007, resulted in a mistrial after five days of testimony and six hours of deliberation, according to previous reports.
Day two of the trial will resume at 9 a.m. today in state District Judge Paul White's courtroom.
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