LIMESTONE COUNTY, Ala. (WHNT) – The third day of testimony in the capital murder trial for Mason Sisk continued Thursday with the State calling Sisk’s ex-girlfriend to the stand.
The witness was Sisk’s girlfriend at the time of the crime. She recounted to jurors that he called her the night of the incident in a panic. Sisk wanted to come to her house but she told him to wait for the police to arrive.
During her testimony, jurors were shown text messages between the two from a jail-issued device. In those text messages, Sisk tells the ex-girlfriend that he committed the crimes but was held at gunpoint and forced to shoot the five victims.
Jurors were read another text exchange between Sisk and the witness in which Sisk says he wanted to be a “contract assassin.” the ex-girlfriend explained she believed that Sisk was referring to getting the person who put him in jail.
In a text message from the same jail-issued device, Sisk told another friend that he had been forced to kill the five victims.
Jurors were shown the murder weapon used in the crime. The State alleged that Sisk led investigators to the gun after confessing to the Sheriff’s Office that he was responsible for the deaths.
Later in the day Jurors were shown a gallery of photos from investigators of the crime scene. These photos displayed the entire Sisk house that night of the crime.
The defense questioned investigators about the practice of collecting evidence from a crime scene and if protocol was followed in this case. They asked investigators why they never considered other suspects and if they believed that John Sisk’s drug debts could have been a motive for someone to murder the family.
Sisk is charged with killing five family members in September 2019. His first trial was declared a mistrial after prosecutors informed the court that FBI computer experts had finally unlocked Sisk’s adoptive mother’s phone.
Sisk, now 18, won’t face the death penalty if convicted but faces life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The trial is ongoing and News 19’s Brian Lawson is in the courtroom; you can follow his live updates here on this blog as they happen.
