After a little over three hours of deliberation on Tuesday, a jury found Jay Rotter guilty of murdering his girlfriend Leslie Hartman in their Denton home in 2020.
Hartman's mother declined to comment immediately after the verdict was read.
Hartman, 46, and former Tarrant County deputy Rotter, then 36, began dating roughly six months before her shooting death on Aug. 26, 2020.
A couple of months after meeting, Rotter moved in with Hartman at her home in the 2400 block of Robinwood Lane as he finalized his divorce and searched for his own house.
Rotter did not testify in his trial. But in interviews with officers after Hartman’s death, Rotter alleged Hartman had shot herself with his duty weapon while sitting in her wheelchair next to him as he watched a TV show. A neighbor’s surveillance camera captured some audio of the shooting.
This week’s evidence
Hartman’s autopsy
An autopsy of Hartman indicated the gun was either touching her temple or held close to her skin. The bullet traveled right to left, front to back and slightly upward.
A toxicology report indicated her blood alcohol content was 0.264 at the time of her death. At this level, Deputy Medical Examiner Dr. Richard Fries testified a person could begin to lose consciousness, experience lethargy and experience slowed motor function. But if someone drinks regularly, as testimony indicated Hartman did, Fries said they could develop a tolerance and not experience these effects as much.
However, alcohol has a synergistic interaction with opioids. There was hydroxyzine and hydrocodone in Hartman’s system at the time of her death. Fries testified the amounts were within a therapeutic range that a doctor would prescribe. Hartman was prescribed opioids to manage pain due to her autonomic dysreflexia.
The defense asked Fries questions that would indicate he originally thought the death was a suicide until lead detective Rodney Mooneyham convinced him otherwise.
Fries said he never officially ruled it a suicide and would have probably ruled it undetermined if it weren’t for reviewing the investigative work. After seeing the full picture, he said he ruled it a homicide. He testified he has never had a case where he ruled a death a homicide but it was actually a suicide.
Rotter’s behavior
The jury learned more this week about Rotter’s alleged behavior immediately before Hartman’s death.
Hartman’s friend, a real estate agent, testified she was helping Rotter search for a house — specifically, one that would accommodate Hartman’s wheelchair. He was approved for a loan on Aug. 25, 2020.
However, the next day — the day Hartman died — the real estate agent testified that Rotter learned the house purchase would need to be delayed because a wood-destroying pest inspection was necessary.
This was very upsetting to Rotter, she testified.
Text messages from Hartman to a friend at about 10:32 the night of her death said Rotter was “in a mood” and “falling around the house.” “He can sort himself out tonight,” she texted.
Rotter’s messages
Forensic technology expert Mario Merendon testified he found several messages and a photo from Rotter within the hour of Hartman’s death. The messages and photo were sent through Discord, a group-chatting application.
Rotter allegedly sent a photo of himself holding a gun in his left hand with the computer in the background with a YouTube video and Discord open. The slide of the gun is pulled back.
The photo was taken at 11:07 p.m. and sent into the Discord chat roughly one minute later.
Merendon testified he found the following draft messages on Rotter’s account on Aug. 26, 2020. The Denton Record-Chronicle has censored the expletives.
- 10:58 p.m. “SHOULD I GO SHOOT THIS F--KINGBOTTLE OF M”
- 10:58 p.m. “In the back”
- 11:00 p.m. “I’m going to go sho”
- 11:06 p.m. “I killed that milk bomb”
- 11:07 p.m. “I went into the yard and merked that milk”
- 11:08 p.m. “It was a bottle of unpateurized mil”
- 11:13 p.m. “I TOLD HER. LISTEN. ONE SHOT ONLY. THEY CALL IT IN AFTER AND THEY CAN”
- 11:14 p.m. “I just sent a 9 millie in this f--kin hippy”
- 11:14 p.m. “I told her to vidya but she was all \’bro, you gon’”
Detectives believe that the message about shooting a 9 mm bullet in a “hippy” refers to Hartman because she was an artist and had used psilocybin mushrooms.
However, Rotter’s defense argues that “hippy” refers to the bottle of milk that Rotter shot in the backyard. The milk label said it was organic and from a Mennonite farm.
Audio expert
Rotter’s defense hired forensic audio expert Barry G. Dickey to analyze surveillance video from Hartman’s neighbor the night of her death.
Detective Mooneyham, who died in 2021, created a timeline based on the surveillance video of when he thought Hartman was shot. He suggested it occurred around 11:13 p.m. when a bang or pop can be heard on the video. If so, Rotter would have called 911 about 20 after Mooneyham thought Rotter shot Hartman.
But Dickey presented a video in which he captioned the surveillance footage with what sounds he identified, messages from the Discord chat and the 911 call to develop his own timeline.
He testified hearing a gunshot at 11:04 p.m. that sounded like it was outdoors, presumably Rotter shooting the milk bottle.
Throughout the audio, there are what appears to be various other bangs or slamming sounds. Dickey testified that these are artifacts, or a misleading observation resulting from flaws in technique or equipment.
Dickey testified that what Mooneyham believed to be a gunshot was actually just a sound created by the internal mechanics of the surveillance system that would not have been audible to a person standing near the camera.
Dickey testified that he heard a second gunshot, this time muffled because it was indoors, at 11:28 p.m. Then, 53 seconds later, Dickey testified, you can hear Rotter begin to scream in the background.
Rotter’s 911 call would have instead occurred about 5 minutes after the second gunshot at 11:28 p.m., which the defense argues is when Hartman committed suicide.
Hartman’s mental health
While testimony from several witnesses has indicated Hartman struggled with her physical and mental health before, a central question of the trial is whether she was still struggling leading up to her death.
Text messages from Hartman’s phone and testimony from her doctor and family indicate she was experiencing significant pain in spring and summer 2020 due to a chronically dislocated hip. The pain caused her autonomic dysreflexia to flare up. She underwent hip surgery in July 2020.
In texts from her phone in the days leading up to her death, Merendon said Hartman appeared to be in good spirits. She was expecting the pain from her hip to end in about two weeks.
Hartman’s doctor testified it’s normal to not experience immediate pain relief from hip surgery. Hartman would have been informed that her condition would start to improve in a couple weeks, he testified.
The defense pointed to messages from Hartman in May and June 2020, when Hartman’s doctor testified she was experiencing a lot of pain. She stated she was cutting herself, felt afraid of her impending surgery, was tired of being “wasted” to cope with the pain, was “in a depression phase” and felt like killing herself.
The state, however, pointed to messages where Hartman explicitly promised she wouldn't kill herself, said she was not “deathy” and that she did not want to die.
All of the messages about feeling suicidal are prior to her surgery in July 2020, the state argued, and any presented from after the surgery were optimistic.
A psychologist, who was hired by the defense to review some text messages between Hartman and others, testified she would consider Hartman at a high risk of suicide.
The psychologist testified she had never met Hartman, Rotter, or any of Hartman’s friends or family. Her assessment was based on the texts the defense provided her, she said.
She also testified that Rotter was experiencing acute stress, which can last up to a month, from a traumatic event after witnessing Hartman’s death. It is normal to forget or misremember events under those conditions, she testified.
State prosecutor Sarah Wood argued Rotter could be lying rather than misremembering. Wood confirmed the psychologist hadn’t reviewed the 911 call or any footage from that night that could indicate whether how he acted immediately after Hartman’s death was normal.
Though it was not admitted into evidence, Rotter allegedly has a history of suicide. An officer said he arrested Rotter at a hospital about two weeks after Hartman’s death. The officer testified out of the jury’s presence that he learned Rotter was admitted to the hospital because he attempted suicide.
Closing arguments
Prosecutor Sarah Wood
Wood argued during closing that Rotter’s statements to officers didn’t align with the evidence at the scene and he changed his story several times.
Wood also pointed to the evidence that there was no gunshot residue or blood splatter on Hartman’s hands. This, Wood argued, is because Hartman’s hands were covered by a blanket that was found next to her body.
Rotter did, however, have gunshot residue and blood on his hands, Woods argued, despite trying to wash them. Whether Rotter waited 5 minutes or 20 minutes to call 911, Wood said, he never tried to save her.
Wood also argued that Hartman’s mental health had improved since her surgery and that she had strong, close relationships even in COVID-19 quarantine.
Hartman had been a paraplegic for over 20 years before she died. Wood argued Hartman had the strength to overcome the loss of her legs’ function many years prior. Wood asked the jury why Hartman would give up after so long.
Defense attorney Bill Lane
Lane argued that the state prosecutors had an agenda to push. Otherwise, why would they have not found a psychologist and audio expert to testify, he asked the jury. He argued this was because the testimony didn’t fit their agenda.
Regarding the gunshot residue on Rotter’s hands, Lane argued that would be expected since he had shot the milk bottle in the backyard not long before Hartman shot herself.
Rotter reacted normally to his girlfriend shooting herself next to him, Lane argued. The jury could hear him screaming 53 seconds after the second gunshot, Lane argued.
Rotter loved Hartman and rather than Rotter killing her, Lane argued that the poor girl had been through a lot and just couldn’t take it anymore.
Defense attorney Navid Alband
There is zero evidence of any domestic violence or even a cross word between Rotter and Hartman, Alband argued.
The anger Rotter told detectives he experienced immediately after Hartman shot herself was because he felt guilty for not stopping her, Alband argued.
Rotter didn’t want detectives to see what was on his phone because he didn’t want the intimate details of his and Hartman’s lives to be aired out, Alband argued.
He’s not some psychopath typing on a computer as his girlfriend bleeds out, Alband said. Rather, Alband argued that Mooneyham’s timeline was wrong and that Hartman shot herself closer to when Rotter called 911.
The police fell victim to confirmation bias, Alband argued, and assumed what was actually a suicide was a crime.
Hartman wanted to die, Alband argued, and she wouldn’t want to see Rotter go down like this.
State prosecutor Michael Graves
There doesn’t have to be a motive or predetermination for Rotter to have murdered Hartman, Graves argued, adding that intent can be formed in an instant. Graves said there doesn’t have to be a history of violence for someone to commit murder.
The jury heard testimony that Rotter was in a bad mood and acting aggressively leading up to Hartman’s murder, Graves argued.
Rotter’s message that read, “I just sent a 9 millie in this f--kin hippy,” is referring to Hartman, Graves argued. He shot her milk bomb art project that night, he was falling around the house and overall acting erratic and unreasonable, Graves argued.
Hartman was three times over the legal blood alcohol content limit and she had drunk while taking prescription opioids. Rotter told detectives it all happened very quickly. But Graves argued that with Hartman’s BAC and opioids, she would not have been moving fast and suddenly shooting herself next to Rotter.