BATON ROUGE, La. — Prosecutors in Louisiana want jurors to know that a woman being tried in the poisoning of her boyfriend may have also killed her husband a year later.
The Advocate reports prosecutors have asked to introduce the evidence at the trial of 51-year-old Meshell Hale.
Hale is charged with first-degree murder in the 2015 death of Damian Skipper. She remains under investigation but not charged in the suspicious death of Arthur Noflin Jr. in 2016. Prosecutor Dana Cummings says Noflin's death is "so intertwined with the offense charged that the state could not accurately present its case without reference to it."
Hale's lawyers say she's not guilty, and granting the request would unfairly lead jurors to conclude "where there's smoke, there's fire," which a fair trial is designed to prevent.
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