Kelly Moody

Court TV legal reporter Kelly Craft was in the courtroom. As he's walking up, he looks at his mother. They touched one another, and he made his way to the stand.

So that was very helpful to the defense case as to why Natalie did not rush him to the hospital when he collapsed.

She had already informed the judge that she was going to take the stand.

Good morning.

I am put on the stand in a murder trial. I don't know why I'm here. I have no connection to this case.

You've never talked to me. Nobody on the fence seems to talk to me since prior to the first trial. So I don't have any idea why I'm here.

That was my recollection at the time.

At the time, that is what I recollected.

The defense released a timeline right prior to the first trial that the vehicle on that day did not arrive in the Sallyport until... about an hour and a half after I left, meaning it is not possible that I saw that.

All I have to do is tell the truth. If it's not perceived to be fair, that's someone else's opinion.

Yeah, so Eric Thompson is charged with murder in the second degree. John Takahara was killed in January of 2022. It was his mother who actually found him devastating. A month later, Eric Thompson was arrested, and the prosecution says that he disguised himself, that he parked his truck down the street from John's clinic. and burned the clothes that he was wearing afterward.

But he had made a mistake, according to the prosecution, by dropping this white bucket hat. The hat was then tested, and in the first trial, a criminalist from the Honolulu PD crime lab testified that it was only likely that it was Thompson's DNA that was on the hat, but it wasn't 100% conclusive.

So the defense has argued and now Eric has testified that he wasn't angry at John and never confronted him about this affair. And then his alibi was that he was actually on a completely different part of the island dumping construction waste at the time that John was shot. And Eric's first trial back in July to August of 2023 actually ended in a hung jury. So this is the second go around.

Yeah, the prosecution has made pretty much the same case and called a lot of the same witnesses, including two of the men whose partners also had affairs with John Takahara. One of the men was the first person that police had actually looked at, Daryl Fujita.

The prosecution is saying, we looked at them and we ruled them out, leaving then Eric Thompson as their sole suspect.

Yeah, the white bucket hat is the proverbial glove, if you will. For Eric's second trial, the prosecution asked a new lab called Cyber Genetics to look at the evidence. And the short story here is that the inside of the crown of the hat and the side of the hat show that Daryl Fujita did not wear that hat. And Eric Thompson was 16.4 trillion times more likely to have worn the hat.

On cross, defense notes that different pieces of evidence were actually stored together, and they're then implying that this could have been cross-contamination.

Right, so it took a bit for them to actually decide if Eric was going to take the stand himself in the second trial. He did in the first trial. As the defense was questioning him, they talked a lot about his relationship with his wife, Joyce. They were high school sweethearts. They showed their prom photos.

Eric said that their relationship was definitely one where opposites attracted, that they each did their own thing, which, of course, was aiming at countering what the prosecution had said in opening statements, that he was controlling and that they had the surveillance cameras on the house that he was looking at when he was away. I

So Eric has testified that they were able to put the affair behind them and they've been able to carry on with normal life. So he talked a lot about what happened on January 12, 2022 for him. That's the day that John Tokohara died. So he testifies that he had a pretty normal day. He had been doing a lot of construction around his house, and he was driving a bunch of bricks over to the dump.

And then later in the evening, he went to the grocery store to buy the special milk that they give their toddler.

And he went to buy beer. Where were you going to get beer from?

And a lot of that movement was captured on the Thompson security cameras as well as neighboring surveillance cameras.

Cross has been pretty focused on doing a compare and contrast of Eric's testimony at his first trial and what he's saying now.

It's off to the jury, so now we are waiting to see what will be the verdict in the second trial for Eric Thompson.

Eric Thompson is accused of fatally shooting his wife's lover, who was an acupuncturist by the name of John Takahara. His wife, Joyce Thompson, received fertility care from Takahara.

Yeah, definitely. From an investigation standpoint, there were no eyewitnesses to the shooting. The murder weapon wasn't ever found. And they're claiming that investigators didn't thoroughly search the area. They're also claiming that there's no electronic data, no GPS tracking data, no cell phone data tying Thompson to the area at all.

So he described Eric as an easygoing guy.

That murdering someone would be extremely out of character.

And then when asked about how his brother Eric behaved around the time of Takahara's murder, he said there really wasn't any change to make note of.

So in Eric Thompson's first trial, he did take the stand in his defense. So we're waiting to see if he'll do the same this time. And of course, his wife, Joyce, is still by his side and has been there every single day sitting behind him.

Yeah, so Dana Chandler stands accused of the 2002 murders. of her ex-husband, Mike Sisko, and his fiance, Karen Harkness. Dana Chandler and her ex-husband had a pretty rocky relationship in the 90s. Their divorce took four years to be processed. Mike Sisko gained complete custody of the couple's two kids, and Dana Chandler had to pay child support.

Prosecutors claim Chandler became jealous, full of rage, obsessed with her ex-husband, ultimately leading her to commit both murders. Dana Chandler went on trial for the murders, was found guilty, sentenced to life in prison in 2012. But then in 2018, the verdict was overturned because of prosecutorial misconduct. She was retried in 2022, but that trial ended with a hung jury.

Chandler has been out on bond ever since.

So even though Chandler waived her right to an attorney, a court order issued last Friday ensured that Chandler would at least have access to an attorney if she wants it.

Yeah, that's right. She claims that she's been attacked by other inmates. In a motion to be released on Bond, Adelson claims an inmate actually shoved her into a bunk. And then when asked why she attacked her, the inmate replied, because you're a killer. You're an expletive killer.

All right. Thanks very much, everyone. Bye.

He described Eric as an easygoing guy, that murdering someone would be extremely out of character.

Yeah, so Eric Thompson is charged with murder in the second degree. John Takahara was killed in January of 2022. It was his mother who actually found him devastating. A month later, Eric Thompson was arrested, and the prosecution says that he disguised himself, that he parked his truck down the street from John's clinic. and burned the clothes that he was wearing afterward.

But he had made a mistake, according to the prosecution, by dropping this white bucket hat. The hat was then tested, and in the first trial, a criminalist from the Honolulu PD crime lab testified that it was only likely that it was Thompson's DNA that was on the hat, but it wasn't 100% conclusive.

So the defense has argued and now Eric has testified that he wasn't angry at John and never confronted him about this affair. And then his alibi was that he was actually on a completely different part of the island dumping construction waste at the time that John was shot. And Eric's first trial back in July to August of 2023 actually ended in a hung jury. So this is the second go around.

Yeah, the prosecution has made pretty much the same case and called a lot of the same witnesses, including two of the men whose partners also had affairs with John Takahara. One of the men was the first person that police had actually looked at, Daryl Fujita.

The prosecution is saying, we looked at them and we ruled them out, leaving then Eric Thompson as their sole suspect.

Yeah, the white bucket hat is the proverbial glove, if you will. For Eric's second trial, the prosecution asked a new lab called Cyber Genetics to look at the evidence. And the short story here is that the inside of the crown of the hat and the side of the hat show that Daryl Fujita did not wear that hat. And Eric Thompson was 16.4 trillion times more likely to have worn the hat.

On cross, defense notes that different pieces of evidence were actually stored together, and they're then implying that this could have been cross-contamination.

Right, so it took a bit for them to actually decide if Eric was going to take the stand himself in the second trial. He did in the first trial. As the defense was questioning him, they talked a lot about his relationship with his wife, Joyce. They were high school sweethearts. They showed their prom photos.

Eric said that their relationship was definitely one where opposites attracted, that they each did their own thing, which, of course, was aiming at countering what the prosecution had said in opening statements, that he was controlling and that they had the surveillance cameras on the house that he was looking at when he was away. I

So Eric has testified that they were able to put the affair behind them and they've been able to carry on with normal life. So he talked a lot about what happened on January 12, 2022 for him. That's the day that John Tokohara died. So he testifies that he had a pretty normal day. He had been doing a lot of construction around his house, and he was driving a bunch of bricks over to the dump.

And then later in the evening, he went to the grocery store to buy the special milk that they give their toddler.

And he went to buy beer. Where were you going to get beer from?

And a lot of that movement was captured on the Thompson security cameras as well as neighboring surveillance cameras.

Cross has been pretty focused on doing a compare and contrast of Eric's testimony at his first trial and what he's saying now.

It's off to the jury, so now we are waiting to see what will be the verdict in the second trial for Eric Thompson.