Crime-scene view of Hudson case
An officer testified to finding the bodies of the singer/actress' mother and brother.
CHICAGO - The trial of the man charged with murdering three of Jennifer Hudson's family members resumed Tuesday with the Oscar-winner shutting her eyes as a police officer described finding her dead family members.
Hudson sat next to her fiance as prosecutors shifted their focus to presenting crime scene evidence in the case against her former brother-in-law, William Balfour.
Hudson hung her head and shut her eyes as Chicago Police Sgt. David Dowling described finding her mother's body sprawled in the living room with gunshot wounds through her back.
Hudson didn't move as Dowling described finding her brother dead in his bed of a gunshot wound to the head. His sheets were pulled up as if he had been sleeping.
Balfour was estranged from his wife, Hudson's sister, at the time of the killings. He has pleaded not guilty to murdering Hudson's mother, brother and 7-year-old nephew.
Hudson, wearing a black top and green skirt, sat in a fourth row bench well within view of jurors Tuesday. Her sister and Balfour's ex-wife, Julia Hudson, sat on her left.
Another officer testified about the frantic search for Hudson's nephew, whose body was found in an SUV three days later. Prosecutors also played a surveillance video showing Balfour getting out of a car at a gas station near the Hudson house on Chicago's South Side before the killings. Prosecutors are trying to show he was in the area at the time - something Balfour has denied.
As the video played on a courtroom screen, Jennifer Hudson rested her head on her knees for several minutes.
Prosecutors created a buzz Monday by calling the Oscar winner and American Idol finalist as their first witness, but on Tuesday they began getting down to the nitty-gritty of their case.
With no surviving witnesses to the murders, prosecutors must offer overwhelming circumstantial evidence that Balfour committed the grisly crime on Oct. 24, 2008.