EAST POINT, Ga. — A panel of jurors was set to be chosen for trial at the Fulton County courthouse.
But there was one problem. The defendant never showed up.
Channel 2′s Tom Jones learned Austin Saunders told the court he had other plans.
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Senior Fulton County Judge David Emerson was not happy Saunders was a no-show for jury selection in his trial on Monday. The judge told Jones, that Saunders called the day before, saying he was in a treatment facility in Dublin, Ga.
The judge issued a warrant for Saunders’ arrest, saying he missed two other court appearances.
“He has no conscious. He doesn’t care. Life doesn’t matter,” Pearlie Haynes told Jones back in March 2019 after Saunders was arrested for her daughter’s murder.
East Point police said Saunders helped set 18-year-old Talya Torres’ body on fire after she was murdered in Clayton County in January 2019.
Jones was there that morning when officers found her body in a burning car on Connally Drive.
“Some people don’t have heart. Some people are just ruthless,” Haynes said.
Kingston Hyman-Bozeman is now serving a life sentence for Torres’ murder. Haynes wants justice in the Saunders case, but now it will have to wait.
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Police say they were able to arrest Saunders after surveillance video captured him using Torres’ bank card hours after she was killed. Officers also said he suggested burning her body after Hyman-Bozeman came to him and said he had killed her.
Haynes told Jones it was all so senseless.
“It was silly of them to think that they would go unnoticed,” Haynes said.
The plan is to get Saunders in custody and back to Atlanta so he can stand trial.
Haynes told Jones in the past with other delays in getting the case to court, “This rollercoaster is draining my soul.”
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