Warning: The next article incorporates graphic particulars involving homicide and sexual assault.

After a sequence of authorized and COVID-19 pandemic-related delays spanning greater than a 12 months, the trial of accused Susie Zhao assassin Jeffery Bernard Morris will lastly get underway this week.

The trial, set to start on Monday, Oct. 3, comes greater than two years after the physique of 33-year-old Zhao, a poker participant and common within the Los Angeles money sport scene, was found burned and partially mutilated in White Lake, Michigan in July 2020.

Morris, who was arrested within the weeks after police found Zhao’s physique, faces two felony homicide prices in Michigan’s Oakland County Circuit Court docket, together with one which prosecutors later tacked on as particulars emerged within the ugly case.

A Trial At Final

On July 13, 2020, Zhao’s body was discovered in a state recreation space in White Lake. An post-mortem revealed that Zhao, who had just lately moved again to Michigan from LA to dwell with household, had been burned alive and sexually assaulted.

Police arrested Morris within the following weeks, who prosecutors allege met Zhao at Sherwood Motel and sure her with zip ties and “lit (her) on hearth till she died.”

Susie Zhao
Susie Zhao

Morris, who has a violent prison historical past courting again to the Eighties, was initially scheduled to face trial in March 2021, however that date was pushed again to September 2021 in what can be the first of many delays within the case as a consequence of COVID-19 restrictions, a submitting error and a change in Morris’ counsel.

PokerNews reported in February that the trial can be getting underway on Sept. 26 with protection legal professional Michael McCarthy performing as Morris’ counsel.

Court docket data present the date was later pushed again to Oct. 3 after a one-week adjournment and now the trial is about to start out tomorrow below presiding Decide Martha Anderson, that means Zhao’s household and the poker neighborhood could lastly get long-awaited solutions and justice for the horrific homicide.

Pretrial Proceedings Underway

There have been a handful of pretrial proceedings within the month main as much as the trial, together with jury choice and requests by native TV stations to cowl the trial.

Moreover, prosecutors filed a movement to introduce “proof of all (Morris’) web searches and net histories” between June 20, 2020 and July 31, 2020. Decide Anderson granted the movement however with the caveat that prosecutors could not introduce as proof any images or movies that end result from these net searches.

Jeffrey Bernard Morris
A movement for prosecutors to introduce proof within the Jeffrey Morris trial

With such proceedings wrapping up, all is about for the trial to get underway on Oct. 3. The trial can be streamed and accessible by way of Michigan’s Virtual Courtroom Directory.

Justice for “Susie Q”

Zhao immigrated to the US from China as a baby and grew up in Michigan earlier than finding out psychology and enterprise at Northwestern College.

Zhao, nicknamed “Susie Q,” later moved to LA and have become a daily participant and commentator on the Stay on the Bike stream on the Bicycle On line casino. She additionally made a reputation for herself with a sequence of deep runs within the World Collection of Poker (WSOP) Major Occasion, together with a Ninetieth-place end within the 2012 Major Occasion for $73,805.

“Susie Q” was a beloved member of the poker neighborhood who had lasting friendships with gamers together with Brandon Shack-Harris, Allen Kessler, Xuan Liu, Ronnie Bardah and Clayton Fletcher, who performed with Zhao within the 2015 Major Occasion and described her as “one of many bubbliest and most vivacious opponents I’ve ever had.”

PokerNews will be covering the Jeffrey Morris trial in the Susie Zhao murder case as it gets underway next week.




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