DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — Attorneys for the man accused of killing his pregnant girlfriend and their unborn child are trying to get a judge to throw out statements he made after her death.
Diamante Haithcoats is accused of shooting and killing Shaniya Rodriguez in February 2023.
Rodriguez was eight months pregnant with their daughter at the time. Doctors delivered her baby through an emergency C-section, but the child later died as well.
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Channel 2′s Tyisha Fernandes was the only reporter in the courtroom as defense attorneys laid out why they thought a 45-minute police interrogation should be tossed out.
Attorneys argued police intimidated Haithcoats into making statements, even though he didn’t say much.
Rodriguez’s mother told Fernandes that Haithcoats hasn’t shown any emotion throughout the whole trial.
“No emotion, no nothing. I was just like, ‘Wow, this man really is heartless,’” Adrienne Rodriguez said. “I just wanna know what happened that night, like what got to that point.”
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Her family says they never expected her boyfriend, someone who was like family, to be the person responsible for her death.
“That was my son, I loved him like my son,” Adrienne Rodriguez said. “When I’m supposed to hate this person, I’m worried about this person and I can’t just turn off these feelings.”
They believe Haithcoats is guilty because of the way he vanished and blocked her family right after she died.
“When it happened, everything you did was guilty. From not coming home that night, being there, moving, going on the run, everything you did was guilty,” she said.
The judge said she will watch the video in private and make a ruling by April 11.
The trial is set to begin the week of May 5
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