Jurors on Monday watched shaky cell phone video of firefighters and emergency personnel try to save four children who died in a fatal home day care fire last year.
Jessica Tata, who faces life in prison for felony murder, can be seen pacing and heard yelling that there are children in the home as smoke billows from the west Houston neighborhood day care.
Tata is accused of leaving seven toddlers napping to go grocery shopping as a pot of oil left on a hot stove started the fire. Three of the children survived.
The video, taken by neighbor Christian Wendenburg, shows firefighters using a saw to cut a hole in the roof and others rushing in and out of the house.
Wendenburg, a well-known private investigator in the Harris County courthouse, was getting home after lunch Feb. 24, 2011 when he saw Tata in the street hysterically shouting for help.
He joined two other neighbors who were trying in vain to get children out.
"I tried to look in the front door, but it was just a wall of smoke and heat," Wendenburg told the jury. "So, I'm just standing there, helpless."
He said Tata said there were originally nine children trapped in the day care, but he saw two come out. Wendenburg also said Tata darted in to the smoke-filled back door to try to find children.
"It was just a wall of black, like a black curtain," he said.
Prosecutors told jurors in opening statements that Tata left the children unattended with oil on the stove causing their deaths. They also said she endangered firefighters and others by telling them their were nine children in the fire, instead of seven.
Her defense team is expected to argue that she made a mistake by leaving the children alone, but that she never intended any harm.
They are expected to point to her actions during the fire, including rushing in and using her fist to break out a side window.
Tata is on trial for the death of 16-month-old Elias Castillo.
Prosecutors later could try Tata in the deaths of 3-year-old Shomari Leon Dickerson, 20-month-old Kendyll Stradford, and 19-month-old Elizabeth Kajoh.
The trial, in state District Judge Marc Brown's court, is in its second week. It could last a month.
Copyright 2012 - Houston Chronicle
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
