The mother of Jordan Allen was the third of four persons to testify for the defense before the jury began deliberations on whether to give him life without parole or life with the possibility of parole.
Sherry Jeanette Allen, the daughter of Sherry and Bill Cole, admitted to defense attorney Leslie Douthat she failed Jordan Allen in every way.
She outlined years of his young life when he was around a home atmosphere of drug use and domestic violence, bouncing from school to school with a father out of the picture.
It was when his mother was sentenced on meth and marijuana related charges that the boys lived with their father for a short time before they went to live with their grandparents at their old Old Snapps Ferry Road home.
In her closing arguments, Leslie Douthat quoting Jordan Allen said he had told her he had never had a family until he met the defense team. It was at that time Bill Cole, sitting along side this reporter, quickly left the courtroom. Ritchie Collins for the state during his closing arguments in the second phase of the trial said “a lot of people have rough lives but they don’t take a hammer to the head of a seven year old.
Following arguments and the charge from the judge, jurors retired to the deliberation room at 4:10 but dinner was ordered when it apparently became obvious they still had some more deliberating to do.
