JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Questions surrounding a police officer's credibility took center stage in court Friday in a high-profile murder case.
Navy Chief Petty Officer Andrea Washington, mother of three, was shot to death in her Jacksonville home in 2018. Her ex-fiancé Danny Beard is charged with her murder.
Friday, Beard's attorney challenged the veracity of one Jacksonville Sheriff's Officer, saying his testimony about whether he got consent to search is unreliable.
Whether the officer got consent to search is important because according to court records, he found a bloody sock in Beard’s pocket. With the officer's credibility in doubt, Beard's attorneys say the judge must throw out key evidence in the case.
"We believe based on all the circumstances that Officer [Kyle] Grunwald was not telling the truth," said Assistant Public Defender Al Chipperfield
JSO Officer Grunwald was one of the first officers on the scene of Washington's murder. He testified at a hearing in November that he got consent to search and detain Beard. That testimony is different than what he wrote in his report the night of the crime, and in his deposition in May 2019.
Chipperfield scoffed at "The unlikelihood that he would remember facts better, more than two years after a sworn deposition than he did at the deposition."
He said that Grunwald knew by the November hearing that the legitimacy of his search was in question.
"By the time he mentioned [getting Beard's] consent at the hearing, he knew he was testifying in a hearing where his search had been challenged," Chipperfield said.
In court transcripts, Grunwald testified memories started “coming back to” him and “popping into his head” shortly before the November hearing. When Chipperfield asked if he shared these new recollections with prosecutors, Grunwald said he had.
A law commonly referred to as “Brady” requires prosecutors turn over any evidence that contradicts the testimony of one of their witnesses. So if Grunwald did tell prosecutors his memory had changed, prosecutors would have been required to tell the defense.
"If in fact, they had learned that consent had been given by Mr. Beard, surely they would have notified the defense," Chipperfield said.
But Friday, Assistant State Attorney Cameron French said Grunwald did not tell prosecutors his recollection of getting consent to search had changed.
"The first time that the state did hear of that information, to be candid with the court and, of course, defense, is during the hearing that we had before, your honor, on November the 23, 2020," French said.
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Among the evidence that Beard's attorney say the judge should suppress is Beard's recorded statement to police, a cellphone seized from his vehicle, information seized from his phone and DNA samples obtained while he was being detained.
First Coast News was not able to reach Grunwald, and JSO declined to comment.
The judge is not expected to rule on the motion for several weeks.