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A jury in Alabama has started deliberating the fate of Ibraheem Yazeed, who stands accused of abducting and murdering 19-year-old Aniah Blanchard back in 2019.
The prosecution has urged the jury to convict Yazeed on two counts of murder: one for killing during a kidnapping and the other for murder during a robbery, as detailed in a report by WBRC.
Blanchard, a student at Southern Union State Community College and the stepdaughter of UFC fighter Walt Harris, disappeared on October 23, 2019, from an Auburn convenience store, according to CrimeOnline. Two days later, her car was discovered in Montgomery, showing significant damage and stained with what was described as a “life-threatening” amount of blood on the passenger side.
Roughly a month after her disappearance, Blanchard’s remains were located in a wooded area of Macon County. The investigation revealed she had been shot.
At the time of the incident, Yazeed was out on bond for attempted murder charges and was reportedly seen on surveillance video entering Blanchard’s vehicle at the convenience store, leading to his arrest in connection with her death.
Blanchard’s kidnapping and murder prompted the Alabama state legislature to pass a law, known as Aniah’s Law, that allowed judges to deny bond for additional charges. Originally, bond could only be denied in a capital murder case. Bond can now be denied if a defendant is charged with murder, rape, sodomy, domestic violence, human trafficking, burglary, arson, or robbery.
Prosecutors said during the trial that they couldn’t prove that Blanchard didn’t allow Yazeed into her car voluntarily but that the blood and bullet casing found in the car indicated that at some point, she no longer consented to his presence. On the robbery charge, prosecutors say he was seen by eyewitnesses with Blanchard’s vehicle and her phone was never recovered.
Yazeed’s defense argued that all the state’s evidence is circumstantial with nothing tying him direction to the kidnapping and murder.
A third murder charge was dropped before closing arguments began, WAKA reported.