Trial begins against man charged with premeditated murder of Sterling Heights woman

The daughter of a Sterling Heights woman who authorities believe was killed by her new boyfriend said she found her mother's blood-soaked body in her living room.

Shelby Hales, 29, testified Wednesday in Macomb County District Court in Mount Clemens in the first-degree murder trial of Jason John Ross, who pleaded guilty to beating and stabbing 47-year-old Kathleen Hales to death in her mobile home in July 2021.

Hales testified that on July 24, 2021, between 3:00 p.m. and 3:30 p.m., she went to her mother's trailer, which is two blocks from her home, after Kathleen Hales's boss at the Honey Tree Grille informed her husband, who also worked at the establishment, that Kathleen had not shown up for her afternoon shift, something she had never done before.

When she arrived at her mother's house, Hales found “the house in shambles”; a coffee table had been overturned, pillows were scattered and the contents of her mother's purse were strewn on the floor, she said.

Hales said she spotted a blanket on the floor, which she pulled away, and then saw a bedsheet and then a hair she didn't immediately recognize. Then she noticed her mother's clothing.

“I see things that belong to my mother, her tank top, I see her jeans, then I look down and see her bare feet with nail polish. I brace myself. I take a deep breath. I look up and see my mother's face and blood everywhere,” she said, starting to sob.

“I tried to shake her, to wake her up, and I screamed, 'Please wake up. Please just wake up. Please, please, just wake up.' She was cold as a block of ice. Her body was stiff.”

Kathleen HalesPROGRAMME PHOTO

She said there was a pool of blood and a broken kitchen knife next to her mother's head.

After realizing what had happened, she went to the door to tell her husband who was waiting outside.

“Please call (the police),” she told him. “She's dead. That wanker killed her.”

Hales said she was referring to Ross, who moved in next door to Kathleen Hales' home in the Sterling Estates trailer park near 19 Mile and Utica Road in early May. The couple began dating and Ross moved in with her, Hales explained.

Then she found her mother’s dog, “Red,” in her mother’s bedroom with the door closed.

Ross, 50, is accused of stabbing her multiple times and causing multiple skull fractures. Police and prosecutors say Ross took Hale's credit and debit cards and fled in her red 2004 Ford Explorer. He was arrested two days later in Prescott, Michigan. He had items in Kathleen Hale's possession that linked him to the crime scene and a gun, Macomb Assistant District Attorney Kelsey Heath said in her opening statement Wednesday.

“She was brutally murdered by her boyfriend Jason Ross,” Heath told jurors.

Jurors will see and hear Ross' statement to police in which he describes “how he slaughtered Kathleen Hales,” Heath said.

He is charged with joint murder, in addition to other charges of larceny in a building, premeditated murder, unauthorized removal of a vehicle and theft of a payment transaction device.

The murder charge carries a life sentence without parole.

Adil Haradhvala, Ross's lawyer, told the jury that his client acted in self-defense, claiming that Hales attacked him with a knife after “an argument escalated.”

Ross “managed to get hold of the knife, they wrestled and he stabbed her,” Haradhvala said. “He acted in self-defense to protect himself.”

Ross had neither motive nor intention to kill Hales, he told the jury.

“She was the goose that laid the golden eggs for him,” he said. “He had nothing, nothing at all. She was basically the one who gave him a job and a roof over his head.”

Ross worked as a dishwasher at the same restaurant as Hales for a while, he added.

Haradhvala admitted that there was a dispute between them, but on the day of the incident everything was fine between them.

He claimed that Ross and Hale were drug addicts.

Shelby Hale testified that her mother took prescription drugs for knee and back pain, asthma and prediabetes, as well as Ritalin and Xanax. Shelby Hale said she saw her mother “almost daily,” often babysat her children and attended her wedding in May.

The trial is scheduled to continue on Thursday before Judge Matthew Sabaugh.

Originally published: August 21, 2024 at 19:02

Trial begins against man charged with premeditated murder of Sterling Heights woman – Macomb Daily

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