Live updates: Brother says men who confronted football player Travis Rudolph 'came over to kill'

WEST PALM BEACH — Day seven of the murder trial of former Florida State University football player Travis Rudolph began Friday. Rudolph is among the remaining witnesses expected to testify now that prosecutors have rested their case.

Attorneys for both sides presented opening statements last week, one casting Rudolph as the aggressor and the other insisting he was a victim. Rudolph, who played briefly in the NFL, is charged with murder and three counts of attempted murder in connection with a fatal shooting outside of his Lake Park home two years ago.

Four men appeared on Rudolph's doorstep shortly after midnight on April 7, 2021, to confront him about a dispute he had with his girlfriend hours earlier. The confrontation turned violent, Rudolph said, and he armed himself with a rifle.

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Investigators with The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office say the men were trying to flee in a black Cadillac when Rudolph fired 39 rounds in their direction, killing Sebastien Jean-Jacques in the passenger seat.

Rudolph asked Circuit Judge Jeffrey Gillen to dismiss the case last year on the basis of Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law, which permits the use of deadly force to protect against death or great bodily harm. Gillen denied his request, leaving jurors to decide whether Rudolph ended Jean-Jacques' life to save his own.

Follow along for live updates from inside the courtroom, where the proceedings resumed at 8 a.m. Friday.

Darryl Rudolph Jr. testifies in brother's defense, describes girlfriend's 'psychopathic rage'

Observers packed into the courtroom gallery Friday afternoon to hear Travis' brother, Darryl Rudolph, testify. One of them was Bo Paske, a student with autism whose lunchroom encounter with the FSU player in 2016 went viral and helped propel Travis to stardom.

"That's my brother, and I love him," Darryl told the jury soon after taking the stand.

Darryl spoke briefly about the shooting that killed their father in 2017 and the fear it instilled in their mother, Linda. Her sons equipped their home with surveillance cameras — the footage from which would later be used in Travis' murder trial.

Darryl, who ran to his younger brother's side during the front-yard brawl, said he used to think of Dominique Jones as a little sister. Travis' defense attorney blamed Jones for instigating the fatal confrontation, texting her brother: "Please go shoot his s*** up."

Jones sent the text after fighting with Travis over messages from another woman she found on his phone. Darryl said he walked in on the couple and heard Jones "yelling and screaming: Who is Kayla?"

"You're just mad because Kayla's got a better body than you," Darryl said his brother told her. He said the comment triggered a "psychopathic rage" within Jones, and she began to wreck Travis' possessions nearest to her.

Darryl stood in the middle of the couple and tried to diffuse the situation while they cursed at one another. He said Jones smacked Travis with a bottle of liquor.

"You ever play whack-a-mole at Chuck E. Cheese?" Darryl asked the jury. "That's how hard she hit him."

Jones told Travis that her brother was going to come "(expletive) you up," Darryl said. He said he didn't call 911 because he thought Jones was bluffing and didn't want to get her in trouble. The arrival of four strangers hours later made him think otherwise.

Brother says men who confronted Rudolph 'came over to kill'

Darryl Rudolph called the subsequent fistfight in the front yard a "brutal assault" on Travis, contradicting the testimony of the three surviving men who said Travis threw the first punch. The fight happened out of view of the home's Ring doorbell camera.

According to Darryl, Tyler Robinson sucker-punched his brother in the face first, and his three friends piled on after. He said he watched, stunned, and thought back to Jones' threats earlier that day.

"We're on demon time," Darryl said he heard one of the men yell. "You messed with the wrong girl. Y'all (expletives) are going to die today."

Darryl called the brawl a "matter of life and death" and said he jumped in to draw two of the attackers away from Travis and onto him. Darryl said Robinson pointed a gun at his head and told him: "You're going to die today."

Robinson didn't pull the trigger, Darryl said. Robinson, who testified that he never pulled out his gun, said he began running back to the car when he saw Travis retrieve a rifle from his home. Darryl said Friday that he saw Robinson and Jean-Jacques pointing their own guns at the brothers from inside the Cadillac.

"I thought it was my last day on Earth," he said.

It was Jean-Jacques'. Travis pulled the trigger of his rifle 39 times, hitting Jean-Jacques 10 times. Darryl said he and his brother went back home, crying, and told their mother of two guns pointed straight at them.

Assistant State Attorney Richard Clausi Jr. pressed Darryl to explain why he didn't call 911, suggesting that Darryl was afraid of incriminating his brother. He asked Darryl why he didn't tell investigators that anyone but Travis had a gun, and why he didn't mention it in his texts to Jones immediately after the confrontation, either.

"She orchestrated the whole thing," Darryl said. "I thought it was self-explanatory. She knew what happened."

Clausi asked why Darryl declined to talk to investigators on the night of the shooting and never sought them out after to tell the same story he shared with jurors. Darryl said he didn't trust law enforcement after they arrested his brother, his "hero," for murder.

Prosecutors rest their case after two weeks of testimony

PBSO forensic scientist Jimmy Palma demonstrated how Rudolph would have loaded the gun and fired it 39 times, careful not to aim the rifle at jurors. Each bullet spent meant another pull of the trigger, he said.

Palma reiterated during cross-examination that Rudolph owned the firearm legally. Defense attorney Heidi Perlet said last week that Rudolph trained himself to use the gun after his father was killed in an accidental shooting in 2017.

Palma's testimony was comparatively brief. Prosecutors rested their case once he left the witness stand, and Gillen dismissed the jury for a one-hour lunch. Rudolph is among the remaining defense witnesses expected to testify.

Defense attorney says lead detective ‘wanted to make a name’ for herself

PBSO detective Emily Vander-Laan defended her decision to arrest Rudolph for murder Friday, refuting accusations that she led a shoddy investigation. Marc Shiner, the football player’s attorney, suggested she ignored leads that could have absolved Rudolph because she didn’t want her case against him to unravel.

Shiner asked why Vander-Laan didn’t test the discarded gun found near the scene of the shooting for Jean-Jacques’ DNA — or for anyone’s DNA. Tyler Robinson testified earlier that he brought the gun with him to Rudolph’s house but never pulled it out of his pocket, dumping it after he’d been shot and was awaiting first responders.

Shiner asked why Vander-Laan didn’t search for other discarded weapons along the path the men drove when they fled from Rudolph’s home, and why she didn’t look further into Rudolph’s mother claim that her son acted in self-defense.

He asked Vander-Laan why she interviewed Keishaun Jones, the young man who led the confrontation, for 10 minutes on the day of the shooting and never again after that. Vander-Laan answered each question with a similar refrain, assuring the jury she acted on the information she had.

“You’re serious right now?” Shiner asked her.

Jurors remained expressionless throughout the cross-examination. Some of Rudolph’s supporters in the courtroom appeared to frown each time Vander-Laan conceded she didn’t do something the defense attorney suggested she should have.

When asked by Assistant State Attorney Francine Edwards how many hours she has spent on the case, Vander-Laan said ”hundreds.”

“I wouldn’t work in this capacity if I didn’t care,” she said.

Hannah Phillips is a journalist covering public safety and criminal justice at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at hphillips@pbpost.com.