The defense began their side of the case on day six of Chen trial

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF) – Saturday was day six of the Jason Chen murder trial.

Chen is charged with the first-degree murder of Jasmine Pace in November 2022.

Today, the defense began their side of the case by calling a surprise witness and attempting a tactic that led to a tense debate.

The defense called Jasmine Pace’s father, Travis Pace, to testify on the spot.

During the first part of the trial, Hamilton County District Attorney Coty Wamp, the lead prosecutor on this case, directed a set of questions about their surprise tactic, showing how off-guard this had taken Pace.

Wamp: “Did you ever receive a subpoena from the defense attorney?”

Pace: “No.”

Wamp: “Were you ever notified by the defense attorney that they were going to call you as a witness today?”

Pace: “Not once.”

Wamp: “Did they tell you Monday? Did they tell you Tuesday?”

Pace: “No.”

Wamp: “Did they tell you Wednesday, Thursday, Friday?”

Pace: “No.”

Wamp: “Did they tell you this morning?”

Pace: “No.”

Wamp: “You didn’t know you were being called as a witness until you were sitting right there, and he said your name, is that right?”

Pace: “Yes.”

Pace sorrowfully sniffled into a tissue as his struggling relationship with his ex-wife, Catrina Bean, Jasmine Pace’s mother, was highlighted, entering the threshold of their break-in to Chen’s apartment.

Wamp: “Is it fair to say that y’all don’t have a great relationship?”

Pace: “Yes.”

Wamp: “Is it fair to say that this has been tough on your already ‘tough’ relationship?”

Pace: “Yes.”

Wamp then pressed Pace about why he would disrupt the crime scene, possibly putting his daughter’s case at risk.

Wamp: “And all you were trying to do was find your daughter?”

Pace: “Correct.”

Wamp: “You were desperate?”

Pace: “Yes.”

Wamp: “Would you have done anything to get into that apartment?”

Pace: “Yes.”

Wamp: “You had reason to believe, based on what the neighbors told you, she could’ve been in danger?”

Pace: “Yes.”

Wamp: “Did you have any idea at the time what had happened to your daughter?”

Pace: “No.”

Pace was asked if he had taken anything from the apartment, such as Jasmine’s photo ID, driver’s license, and her credit card.

“We may have grabbed all of the IDs. I don’t remember if we did it at that exact moment.”

Pace was then asked, “What items do you remember observing on the bed?”

“I think all that I remember on the bed was pillows, blankets. It was messy; it wasn’t made up. Possibly there was clothing on top of the cover. I don’t think anything else was there at the time.”

Later on, throughout the trial, defense attorney Joshua Weiss spent over an hour persuading the judge to admit crime scene expert Johnny Lawrence’s testimony.

During this time, photos from the crime scene were shown, including the entryway, a dry pool of blood, and a picture of the sheets from the bed with a handprint on them.

While Lawrence claimed he had built theories from his opinions, he did not have a definitive conclusion about what happened that night.

Lawrence: “I’m telling people what the ‘stain’ is telling me to do,” the crime investigator explained, “but I can’t go deeper than that.”

With time building up due to this debate, Hamilton County Judge Boyd Patterson expressed concerns about allowing the investigator’s testimony to be used.

“That’s getting close to an opinion by the expert that’s irrelevant to the premeditation. Maybe I haven’t been explaining it for the last hour and a half well…”

Judge Patterson eventually allowed Lawrence to testify as an expert.

We will continue to update you as this trial progresses and resumes on Monday.