The Judge Read Every Text. Then He Made Two Calls That Change This Trial.

Before a single witness took the stand on Day 3, the judge had already read every November text message between Judy Church and Leroy Fowler. Every one of them. He told both attorneys what he found. And then he ruled.

There were two fights in that hearing room. The defense won the bigger one. The prosecution won the other. And for one stretch of about ten minutes, the judge changed his mind in front of everybody.

What the Judge Read

He described the texts as explicit, sexually charged, and in his words, potentially appalling to most or nearly all jurors. Fowler was sending Church pornographic links throughout November, and the two were discussing whether they could recreate scenes on a planned New Hampshire trip. The judge also flagged that some of the language in those messages could be seen as racist or perpetuating racial stereotypes.

He was transparent about it. This is what these texts are. This is what the jury would read. Then he asked Scully directly: have you made a reasoned strategic judgment that this is actually good for your client?

Scully's answer was about as candid as you get from a defense attorney in open court.

That's not a lawyer playing games. That's a lawyer acknowledging the cost of a piece of evidence and paying it anyway because the alternative is worse. If those texts stay out, the defense loses the clearest window into Church's actual mindset in the days leading up to November 11. The judge confirmed that decision was fully discussed with Church and put it on the record.

What Got Ruled In

The November texts up through Fowler's final message, sent at 5:27 AM on November 11, 2022 — hours before the 911 call — are heading to the jury. The judge found that a reasonable jury reading those texts could draw an inference that Church was engaged in an intense, close relationship with Fowler that is contrary to a contention she had specific intent to kill him that morning.

That is the state of mind argument the defense has been building since the opening statement. The $124,000 Florida investment. The November 5 breakup text to Barbara, confirmed by Randall on Day 3. Now the couple's own words in November, in their own voices, going directly to the jury.

The prosecution made a reasonable counter-argument: these texts reflect Fowler's mindset more than Church's, the relationship was toxic and dysfunctional, and intimate messages don't preclude the possibility of murder. The judge acknowledged all of it. He ruled anyway. The texts are in.

What Got Cut

Church told police "I did not kill that man" during her second recorded interview. That phrase is coming out.

This one surprised me. The judge initially said he wouldn't require the redaction. Then the prosecution argued that the statement is a freestanding denial that doesn't illuminate anything in the surrounding exchange the prosecution is admitting. The doctrine of completeness, they said, doesn't require it. The judge listened, thought about it, and reversed himself in the same hearing.

The jury will hear a substantial portion of that second interview. They won't hear those four words. Whether that matters depends on how much they hear instead, and whether the absence of an explicit denial registers as significant or just as procedural editing.

The Detail That Deserves More Attention

In the middle of the Bowden argument, Scully dropped something that got buried under the text ruling discussion. Church was arrested before the NMS lab results came back. Before the testing confirmed ethylene glycol in the Powerade bottle. When the state moved to arrest her, they had the physical evidence from the search — the bottle, the RainX — but the forensic confirmation wasn't there yet.

The state made an arrest without completed lab work. Then built the forensic case after the fact. That sequencing is exactly what the Bowden framework targets: an investigation that locked in a suspect and then gathered evidence to support that conclusion rather than following evidence to a conclusion.

That is going to be in the closing argument. Watch for it.

WATCH THE FULL HEARING Judge Rules on Text Evidence and Police Interview Redactions | Death by Antifreeze Trial

Trooper Williams takes the stand next. He is the lead investigator, the sole grand jury witness, and the person who will have to answer for every investigative decision this case has built up: the family-directed start, the search failures, the phone asymmetry, the NMS gap, and now the Bowden framework that Scully formally articulated on the record. After everything that has been established through 21 prior witnesses and two days of hearings, his cross-examination could be the most consequential of the trial.

We'll be there.