A judge declared a mistrial Monday in the murder trial of an Alabama teenager accused of killing his father, stepmother and three young siblings after new evidence from one of the victim’s cellphones become available.
Limestone County Circuit Judge Chadwick Wise wrote in a one-page decision, attorneys need time to review a “voluminous” amount of material that was contained in the phone belonging to the stepmother of defendant Mason Sisk, who was 14 at the time of the gunshot killings.
Wise granted a defense motion to end the trial, which was entering its second week, and send jurors home.
Prosecutors accuse Sisk, now 17, of shooting his family to death in their north Alabama home in 2019, saying he told investigators he killed them because he was “fed up” with them.
Defense lawyers, who lost a bid to prevent jurors from hearing about Sisk’s statements to police, argued the boy didn’t have a plan to kill or any firearms experience.
A second trial will begin Feb.13th, a court docket showed.