On Friday, the prosecution in Jose Morales’ trial continued to chip away at the story Morales initially told Ansonia police regarding where he was and what he was doing the day his girlfriend died.

It marked the fifth day of Morales’ trial at Milford Superior Court on charges of murder and evidence tampering in the beating death of Christine Holloway in her home at 6 ½ Myrtle Ave. over five years ago. Court began with the jury hearing a 911 call from Morales’ cell phone made at 1:52 a.m. on Sunday, Dec. 1, 2019. On it, the male caller says “Myrtle Avenue” three time, in what Officer Jacquelyn Troesser, with the Ansonia Police Department, testified was a slurred voice. Troesser said she repeatedly asked where on Myrtle Avenue—which is heard in the call—but got no response.

“After that, the male voice kind of stopped, and then I heard a female voice in the background that stated something like, ‘Hang up. Stop. Who are you talking to?’ Troesser told the jury. The prosecution believes that voice was Holloway shortly before Morales killed her. The amended charging information from Supervisory State’s Attorney Howard Stein alleges that between 1:57 a.m. and 6 a.m. on Dec. 1, 2019, Morales struck Holloway “multiple times in the head and torso with an instrument that created several round shaped marks approximately one inch in diameter severely fracturing her skull and causing other blunt force injuries.” While on the witness stand, Troesser told the jury the caller hung up and didn't answer her calls back, so she sent a patrol car to the neighborhood. Detective Mark Clifford testified he slowly drove up and down Myrtle Avenue with his windows rolled down and his lights activated, but all was quiet. The 911 call contradicts Morales' initial statement to police—which the jury heard on Monday. In a recorded phone call from the evening of Monday, Dec. 2, Morales said he hadn't seen Holloway or the one-year-daughter they shared together, Vanessa Morales, since Friday, Nov. 29. According to Morales’ arrest warrant, in a later police interview, he admitted to making the 911 call from Holloway’s home, saying he did so after seeing two guys running at the house. Morales also told police he was on PCP at the time and claimed they knocked him out, according to the warrant.

In court Friday, another witness put Morales at the crime scene on Dec. 1. Patrick Rowley, whose aunt lived next door to Holloway at the time, testified he was helping his aunt move a refrigerator that afternoon and when he left around 2:45 p.m., saw a man in a hoodie standing outside Holloway’s home—which stuck with him.

“It was a very windy, cold day, and I think it was snowing or raining, and it was just odd that someone was standing there on a cell phone. It just didn't seem right,” Rowley testified.

Rowley told the jury he didn’t know the man but later contacted police when he learned about Holloway’s death. Rowley said police showed him an array of photos, and he identified one of those as the man he saw. The photo was of Morales.

“Do you see that person presently here in the courtroom today?” asked Stein.

“Yes," responded Rowley pointing to the defendant and describing the checked shirt Morales was wearing.

On cross examination, attorney Ed Gavin honed in on the written statement from Rowley back then, which said he was 90% sure the man he saw was Morales.

“You weren’t 100% sure. You only saw the individual for a very short period of time, correct?” Gavin said.

“Yes,” Rowley answered.

Holloway’s landlord, Christopher Picariello, took the stand next and also told the jury about an unusual occurrence on Dec. 1. Picariello turned the garage below the residence into his workshop and on that day, had his mom there to help with a project that required power tools. Picariello testified he’d never heard more than footsteps from above until that day, between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m.

“It was loud, louder than normal,” Picariello recalled. “It sounded like someone was moving furniture.”

“Am I understanding you correctly that the sound of this noise was of sufficient quality that you stopped working with power tools that you were using?” asked Stein.

“Correct,” said Picariello.

"And did I understand you correctly that you said something to your mother about it?” continued Stein.

"Yes," replied Picariello.

Picariello’s mother testified after him and backed up what her son had said. She also told the jury that in addition to the noise he heard, she’d heard some loud bangs from Holloway’s unit above.

The day’s final witness focused on a montage of surveillance footage that the prosecution said showed Morales’ movements on Dec. 1 in the hours after the alleged murder. Police believe Morales spent the rest of the day cleaning up and getting rid of evidence. The video shows his car driving to and from Holloway’s neighborhood, including in the area of Kiducation bins in Derby, where bloody evidence in the case was later located.

On cross examination, Gavin asked whether police located footage of Morales’ car in the church parking lot where the bins were, but the answer was no.

The investigation into Holloway’s death began on the night of Dec. 2 when police forced their way into the home during a welfare check and found Holloway slumped over and naked in the bathtub. There was no sign of the couple’s daughter. Vanessa is still missing today. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children recently put out a new age-progression picture of what she might look like at six years old. Morales was named a suspect in his daughter’s disappearance but hasn’t been charged in connection to it.

The Morales trial continues Monday, April 14, but with just one alternate juror remaining in what’s expected to be a month-long trial. On Friday, a third juror was excused due to him being a cousin of the Ansonia detective who testified that day, Mark Clifford. Stein said in court that Clifford’s name was not on the witness list given to potential jurors during jury selection because his response to the 911 call was filed under a different case number. Stein also told the court that the juror did say during jury selection that he was related to an Ansonia officer but didn’t know he was connected to the Morales case.

One juror was excused on the first day of the trial before testimony began after a last-minute scheduling conflict came up and another juror was excused Tuesday for an issue that was not put on the record. All were replaced with alternates, four of which were chosen during jury selection.

More crime scene photos, blood evidence focus of Jose Morales’ murder trial on Day 3