Jury sees video of Jose Morales, family reacting to news of girlfriend’s homicide

The prosecution began the seventh day of the trial at Milford Superior Court by playing police body camera footage from Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2019.

Marissa Alter

Apr 15, 2025, 11:06 PM

Updated 5 hr ago

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The jury in Jose Morales’ murder trial on Tuesday saw video of his and his family’s reactions to news Morales’ girlfriend, Christine Holloway, was found dead.
The prosecution began the seventh day of the trial at Milford Superior Court by playing police body camera footage from Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2019. The video was recorded when Ansonia police brought Morales back to his parents’ home in New Haven after his first interview with police. It showed investigators reveal to Morales, his mother and his stepfather that Holloway had been found but not alive.
"No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!” Morales’ mother, Lydia DeJesus, sobbed. “What happened to her? What happened to her?”
Morales, seen in the bottom right of the video, remained emotionless, then put his head in his hands.
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The conversation occurred several hours after police forced their way into Holloway’s home on Myrtle Avenue Monday night. They discovered her slumped over in the bathtub with a massive wound to her head. Officers also found no trace of the couple’s 1-year-old daughter, Vanessa Morales, who remains missing today.
“It's a homicide,” one of the investigators stated about Holloway's death, causing DeJesus to being wailing again. “We are looking for all the help we can get.”
"I don't know! I don't know! What you want me to say?” Morales said in the video as his mother began to question him, along with police, about what happened. “I don't know!”
“Who do you mean you don’t know?” DeJesus asked her son.
DeJesus told police Morales was at Holloway’s home over the weekend, disputing the alibi Morales had given—that he was at a friend's home in East Haven. DeJesus said Morales had even Facetimed her from Ansonia.
“I Facetimed you from Hector's house, but made you believe I was with her,” Morales responded, saying he’d pretended to be with Holloway because he didn’t want his mother to know he was partying with a friend.
The video played while Lt. James Frolish, one of the officers seen in the footage, was on the stand. Frolish testified that after the conversation, police seized the iPad that Morales had used to Facetime his mom.
The jury heard testimony on Monday that records showed the iPad connected to the router in Holloway’s home over the weekend.
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The final witness Tuesday was Dr. Michael Hays, with the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, who performed the autopsy on Holloway. Hays told the jury Holloway died from blunt force injuries to her head and torso. As he spoke, the prosecution presented autopsy photos showing the extent of Holloway’s injuries. They included five broken ribs, circular bruises and abrasions all over her body and massive trauma to her skull. Hayes testified that Holloway’s brain had been “eviscerated.”
Hays also said that off-white fragments that police recovered from the garbage disposal of Holloway’s kitchen were bone fragments and bone marrow.
Before court adjourned for the day, Judge Shari Murphy told the jury that the trial was running a little ahead of schedule, and the prosecution would rest its case Wednesday.
It's unclear if Morales will take the stand in his defense. He's charged with murder and evidence tampering. Police believe he killed Holloway in the early morning hours of Sunday, Dec. 1, 2019, then spent the next day trying to get rid of evidence and cover his tracks.
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