UPDATE: Jurors say evidence was insufficient, find Robert Wright III not ... - Columbus Ledger-Enquirer
com Robert Hampton Wright III,left, talks with his defense attorney Richard Hagler after Wright was found not guilty Tuesday afternoon for setting fire to three cars inside Tim's Foreign Car Service. 05/19/15 After about three hours’ deliberation Tuesday, a jury concluded Robert Hampton Wright III’s defense attorney was right: Prosecutors just didn’t have the evidence to prove Wright set fire to three cars in a Columbus auto shop on Aug. Around 4 p. m. , the jury delivered its verdict, acquitting Wright on three counts of arson and one count each of second-degree burglary and second-degree criminal damage to property. The hardest rock prosecutors had to throw at Wright was surveillance video purporting to show his distinctive pickup truck traveling to the auto shop at 1:36 a. m. , shortly before the fire started. During the trial, jurors personally inspected Wright’s silver Ford F-250 pickup, which police seized about a week after the fire and kept in their custody. In his closing argument Tuesday, Assistant District Attorney Pete Temesgen cited features of Wright’s pickup he claimed jurors could see on the video from security cameras near the auto shop. Temesgen said the matching features were the truck’s silver color and its black wheels, fender flares, brush guard, winch and bedliner, black and silver side steps, and large signal lights on its side mirrors. Source: www.ledger-enquirer.com
