Tuesday, December 07, 1999
Prosecutor: death after rebuff
Man accused of strangling his girlfriend
BY STEVE KEMME
The Cincinnati Enquirer
HAMILTON — Prosecutors said Monday that Christopher Hubbard strangled his girlfriend the day after she returned a diamond ring he had given her a few days earlier.
“Jill Sexton had reservations about continuing the relationship,” assistant county prosecutor John M. Holcomb said in his opening statement Monday at Mr. Hubbard's murder trial. “It was getting more serious than she was ready for.”
Mr. Hubbard, 19, of Hamilton, is accused of choking Ms. Sexton, 18, a Hamilton High School senior, on March 22 and driving her body to Tennessee.
Police found Ms. Sexton's body March 23 in her car in Decatur, Tenn. Her decomposing body had been hidden under comforters and a suitcase.
Mr. Hubbard is charged with murder and gross abuse of a corpse. Judge H.J. Bressler of Butler County Common Pleas Court is presiding over the jury trial.
Butler County Coroner Dr. Richard Burkhardt said Ms. Sexton died from a lack of oxygen caused by manual strangulation. He said it takes four to six minutes of constant pressure on the throat for someone to die from strangulation.
Hamilton Police Sgt. Ed Buns said Mr. Hubbard's mother, Debbie Hubbard, told him that her son had cuts on his neck and wrists when she returned to her Hamilton apartment the evening of March 22. She also told him the bathroom was full of blood.
Sgt. Buns said Mrs. Hubbard said her son told her he had choked Ms. Sexton and wanted to commit suicide so he wouldn't have to spend the rest of his life in jail.
“She was extremely upset, crying and hyperventilating,” Sgt. Buns said.
Barbara Philpot, a friend of Mrs. Hubbard's, said Mrs. Hubbard had given her the same account when she arrived at her apartment a few minutes before Sgt. Buns.
Mr. Holcomb said that before running from his mother's apartment March 22, Mr. Hubbard ripped his mother's telephone out of the wall when she told him she would call the police.
Mr. Hubbard hid Ms. Sexton's body in her car and drove to his aunt's trailer in Ten Mile, Tenn., south of Knoxville, Mr. Holcomb said. He said Mr. Hubbard told his aunt he had cut himself on an orange juice can.
His aunt took him to a hospital for treatment of his cuts. When Mr. Hubbard repeated the same story to hospital personnel, they became suspicious and contacted police.
Hamilton police, who had been alerted by the Athens, Tenn., police, drove to Tennessee and discovered Ms. Sexton's body in her car.
Ms. Sexton's mother, Connie Isaacs, said she had called Mrs. Hubbard the evening of March 22 because her daughter had not reported for her job at a fast-food restaurant that afternoon.
She said Mrs. Hubbard told her she didn't know where her daughter was. Police later told her what had happened to her daughter.
Mrs. Isaacs said Ms. Sexton had been dating Mr. Hubbard since October 1998. Since they began dating, Mr. Hubbard had bought Ms. Sexton a watch, perfume and speakers for her car, Mrs. Isaacs said.
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