First published at 10:11 UTC on July 20th, 2019.
Douglas Kelly was convicted of murdering 19-year-old Sara Weir. He stabbed Sara to death with a pair of scissors several times and then hid her body under a bed in the apartment where he was living at the time. Sara's autopsy revealed that she …
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Douglas Kelly was convicted of murdering 19-year-old Sara Weir. He stabbed Sara to death with a pair of scissors several times and then hid her body under a bed in the apartment where he was living at the time. Sara's autopsy revealed that she had died of a total of 29 stab wounds.
At the trial, Martha Farwell, Sara’s mother, testified about Sara and the impact her death had on her family. She prepared a videotape of Sara’s life that was played to the jury, consisting of a montage of still photographs and video footage documenting Weir's life from her infancy until shortly before she was killed. The video was narrated by the victim's mother, Martha Farwell, with soft music playing in the background, and it showed scenes of her swimming, horseback riding, and attending school and social functions with her family and friends.
The jury returned a verdict of death. Douglas Kelly appealed, contending that the court should not have admitted the videotape.
Both the California Supreme Court and the United States Supreme Court upheld the admissibility of the victim's impact video.
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