BELTON — The clanking of the shackles at the wrists and ankles of Maya Maxwell, the co-defendant in the capital murder trial of Cedric Marks, was all that could be heard shortly before 9 a.m. on Thursday in the 426th District Court.
Marks was arrested for allegedly killing his ex-girlfriend, Jenna Scott, and her friend, Michael Swearingin, at a Killeen residence on Jan. 3, 2019, before their bodies were discovered more than a week later in a shallow grave about 20 miles from a Henrietta, Okla., Walmart, where Marks and Maxwell were captured on surveillance video. Marks is representing himself with outside legal counsel in the death penalty case.
It was the third day Maxwell — who is giving her testimony against the former mixed martial arts fighter in exchange for a 20-year plea deal that was OK’d by the victims’ families — was on the stand.
During a hearing outside of the presence of the jury shortly after 3 p.m., Bell County Assistant District Attorney Stephanie Newell asked Maxwell why she was so terrified to flee or take action against Marks in the period following the murders of Scott and Swearingin.
“Not only (because of) what I had just witnessed him do with his bare hands but his mention of this wasn’t the first time,” Maxwell told Newell.
Maxwell thereafter testified to four additional murders that Marks, 48, had confessed to her in “great detail” while the pair traveled north from Clearview, Okla., toward his ex-wife’s residence in Muskegon, Michigan.
“First he told me that this all started with cats and kittens — that he was hurting them,” said Maxwell, who was pregnant at the time of the murders. “Then he said that the first person he killed was a boy when he was still a boy. I don’t know what age and he never told me a name, but he said that this boy had come over and asked for him to come out and play. They walked to a pond and he saw a log that he was able to pick up but heavy enough to hurt this boy. He hit him in the back of the head where he fell face first into the pond. He said he watched him drown and he left. At the time, no one ever knew really what happened because all there (was) were kids’ footprints.”
The three other road trip confessions, Maxwell testified, covered the murders of a fellow prisoner while Marks’ served six years in a Oklahoma penitentiary before he was released in 1998; Tulsa resident Andre Ogans in 2007; and Bloomington, Minnesota, resident April Pease in 2009.
“The second one was when he was in prison in Oklahoma,” said Maxwell, whose voice trembled as she spoke. “Again, I don’t know the name but there was a man in there who was set to be released relatively shortly. He had been kind of a problem to everybody in the prison to include the guards, (Marks) said. They ended up going somewhere off camera in the prison and he killed him. He was questioned about it, him and a couple other people, because they were the last people seen going into wherever that area was, and they believed him that he didn’t do it.”
She noted how that murder also involved a choke hold — the same form of restraint that was used to kill Swearingin, a Temple resident, in the bathtub of a Killeen residence.
“(The next murder) turns out to be Andre,” Maxwell said. “He said that they were in prison together and while they were in prison Andre had hit on him and made sexual advances. (Marks) said he was patient and waited till they were both out. He had found Andre out there in the free world. He had him leave a note for his mom or whoever it was that he had been staying with basically saying he’d be right back. I don’t remember what he said about how he killed him. Just that he did cut him up and burned him, and that (Ginell McDonough) helped bury him near where family reunions are.”
Newell then asked if he confessed to any other slayings.
“Yes, he did … to April Pease,” Maxwell said. “I don’t know for sure how he killed her, but it was in Minnesota and (he) mentioned something to do with North Dakota in relation to that murder.”
Pease, who was abducted from a Minnesota women’s shelter, also was the mother of one of Marks’ children.
Over the course of the hours-long cross examination, Newell objected to countless lines of Marks’ questioning when he repeatedly asked Maxwell questions that had already been answered and attempted to claim that Maxwell was lying on the stand to simply earn her plea deal — of which at least 82 were sustained by 426th District Court Judge Steve Duskie.
“If you get on that transport and head back to your cell and you found out that your deal could be pulled because of inconsistencies, what will you do?” Marks asked Maxwell.
Maxwell stressed that she would be giving the same exact testimony if it was during a trial where she was being tried for the same crimes as Marks.
“I know that I’m not lying. I’m fully confident in everything that I’ve said and that’s all I can do,” she told Marks. “If they were to decide to pull the deal, whatever comes my way, I would accept it. I would just accept it at this point … because I believe that Jenna and Michael deserved to have someone tell the truth.”
Although Marks indicated earlier in the afternoon that he would only need about 30 more minutes to finish cross-examining Maxwell, he told Duskie how he would need another couple of hours on Friday.
“I’m going to limit any re-cross to the scope of what’s been brought up earlier by the redirect,” Duskie told Marks.
Marks was not pleased in the slightest.
“Your honor, this is a death penalty case and this is the co-defendant telling these jurors lies about me killing people that I never did,” he said, raising his voice to Duskie. “I’m upset for a reason because my life is on the line. This person has clearly lied and I have the right to cross examine her vigorously. I’m not getting a fair trial whatsoever in this courtroom with this district attorney.”
Marks is charged with capital murder of multiple people, a capital felony; burglary of a habitation with intent to commit a felony, a first-degree felony; tampering with evidence, a third-degree felony; and various misdemeanor charges.
He will continue his defense at 9 a.m. Friday morning in the 426th Courtroom at the Bell County Justice Center in Belton.