Jurors shown videos of Laurel home’s interior after killings, fire

DAKOTA CITY — A Dakota County jury on Tuesday got a thorough look at video showing the inside of a Laurel residence set ablaze after the three people who lived there were shot and killed in August 2022.
Several videos, recorded inside 503 Elm St. on Aug. 4, 2022, were published amid testimony by Nebraska State Patrol investigator Amanda Defreece on the fourth day of evidence presentation in Jason Jones’ murder trial.
Jones, 44, is charged with four counts each of first-degree murder and use of a firearm to commit a felony and two counts of first-degree arson in connection to the shooting deaths of Gene Twiford, 86, and his wife, Janet Twiford, 85; their daughter, Dana Twiford, 55; and Michele Ebeling, 53, in the early-morning hours of Aug. 4, 2022, in Laurel.
Defreece, a criminal investigator for Lincoln-based Troop H of the state patrol, was one of several investigators called to Laurel that day from around the state as part of the agency’s investigation into the deaths.
One of Defreece’s tasks was to conduct a walk-through inside the Twiford’s 503 Elm St. residence and video-record the condition of the home and key pieces of evidence located by investigators. Roughly 40 minutes’ worth of footage was played during Defreece’s several hours of testimony.
Inside, much of the main level of the Twiford home was badly burned. Pieces of furniture were nearly disintegrated, a television hanging on a wall in the living room had melted to the floor, and soot caked the walls, floors and most of the family’s belongings.
Key pieces of evidence — a Ruger handgun and a knife — were found in the living room near a coffee table.
The gruesome video also showed Gene Twiford lying on the master bedroom floor and his wife’s body on the bed with her feet hanging over the side. Shell casings were scattered throughout the bedroom floor, bullet fragments damaged the bedding and a drawer next to the bed, and a smoke detector had fallen onto the bed after melting from the ceiling..
Dana Twiford’s body was found on the floor in an office room just across the hall from her parents' room.
Defreece walked through the home with another state patrol investigator and a state fire marshal investigator who spray painted letters on the walls to differentiate the different rooms in the house.
When asked by Assistant Nebraska Attorney General Corey O’Brien how she would describe the inside of the house that day, Defreece said it was “very eerie.”
“Everything was black,” Defreece said. “... Things had their place, but everything just had this dark blanket over it.”
Prosecutors also displayed dozens of photos from inside the Twiford home.
Depicted in a few of the photos were the Twifords’ wallets, which were found in different areas of the home.
Todd Lancaster, Jones’ lead defense attorney, objected to the admission of a handful of photos, including Dana Twiford’s wallet containing her identification and a photo of her with her father, a military veteran who was wearing an American Legion hat. Lancaster also objected to the use of photos of the inside of Gene Twiford’s wallet, which contained American Legion and veteran cards, as well as photos showing Twiford wearing military regalia.
The defense attorney argued that the photo in Dana Twiford’s wallet and the two cards found in Gene Twiford’s wallet were prejudicial in that they depict Twiford’s veteran status. Gene Twiford could be identified for the jury through his driver’s license rather than military cards, Lancaster added.
“None of that stuff is relevant to the issues in this case, and that evidence would be unfairly prejudicial,” he said.
O’Brien said the purpose of the photos was to show where in the rooms the wallets were located, which could create a clearer view of Jones’ motive.
“We’re not alleging that anything was stolen, but I think that’s significant that these wallets were undisturbed,” O’Brien said. “The (possible) motive that he was stealing anything is negated by the fact that these wallets were undisturbed.”
As for the photos of Gene Twiford wearing military clothing, O’Brien argued that those photos help show how “perfectly kept” the residence was, another possible indicator of Jones’ motive.
“We’d ask (the court) to be mindful of the fact that testimony has come out that (Gene Twiford) was a regular goer of the VFW,” the prosecutor said. “We’re not calling attention to it, we’re not asking for testimony as to his service. We’re not calling attention to his service as an honorable vet.”
District Judge Bryan Meismer admitted photos of the wallets and of Gene Twiford donning military regalia, but he instructed prosecutors to have their witnesses avoid any testimony mentioning Gene Twiford’s veteran status.
Fire investigator: Twiford house fire was incendiary
A day after an investigator with the Nebraska State Fire Marshal’s Office testified that the fire at Ebeling’s 209 Elm St. home was set on purpose, another fire investigator said the same about the Twiford home.
Investigator Garrett Weidner, who himself walked through the Twiford home, noticed irregularly shaped fire patterns indicating a liquid was poured on the floor. A gasoline odor was detected in the living room area, which sustained the most significant damage.
Weidner extracted pieces of flooring from inside the home that were later sent to the Douglas County Crime Lab for testing. He also obtained samples of liquid from a plastic pop bottle found outside the back door and a gas can north of the home.
A fire debris analysis test showed the presence of flammable liquid in the samples.
“The conclusion that was made was that it was an incendiary fire,” Weidner said. “We had no accidental sources that we could find that would supply heat for fire ignition, and we also had no natural sources at that time that would indicate that it was a naturally caused fire.”
It was determined, he said, that the fire was started by somebody who used an open-flame device. Defreece had testified earlier that a lighter — the possible ignition source — was found in the Twifords’ yard.
A severely damaged gas can also was photographed inside a bathroom in the Twiford home. Investigators had initially thought the gas can was a badly burned garbage can, so they did not collect it as evidence.
Jones is accused of fatally shooting the Twifords in in the early-morning hours of Aug. 4, 2022, before setting their house on fire. It is alleged that he also shot and killed Ebeling before setting her home ablaze that same morning.
If convicted, Jones could face the death penalty. The case was moved by Meismer to Dakota County earlier this year after the judge determined Jones would not be able to receive a fair trial in Cedar County.
Other notes from Tuesday:
— Anthony Sattlefield, a retired Nebraska State Patrol investigator, was the third witness to testify. He responded to Laurel from the Omaha-based Troop A on Aug. 4, 2022, and assisted with collecting evidence outside the Twiford home.
Sattlefield opened several packages of evidence and presented the evidence to the jury. His testimony will resume Wednesday morning.