TULSA -- Michael Bever's murder trial for the stabbing of his parents and siblings was put on hold to debate gruesome images on Tuesday.
The jury was sent home early after attorneys began yelling over violent photos, and what is and isn't appropriate to send to jurors. They spent hours looking at close to 300 images.
The prosecution said with a large crime scene and six different victims they have to give the jury a full picture of what happened in July of 2015. They did warn it may by tough for jurors to see, with a house covered in so much blood first responders were slipping in it just trying to get to all the victims. The Tulsa County district attorney said they're not backing down before resting their case.
"I'm not going to sit there and say that this jury doesn't need to get my best evidence. I'm going to fight hard to make sure they have a complete and full understanding of what this is about," Steve Kunzweiler said.
The defense said this is only being done for shock value and sympathy for the family, and instead of showing hundreds of pictures they asked the judge to cut the fat. In the end she cut about 10 percent from the original batch, and is leaving others up to review.
"When you see what happened in this case, to put that in the back of your mind and really make a rational and critical decision about what did Michael Bever do, what did Michael Bever not do, it's easy to get overwhelmed," defense attorney Corbin Brewster said.
The day started with the next two prosecution witnesses. The firefighter on the stand described his experience of watching bodies with stab wounds being dragged out of the home, and the K9 officer talked about finding Michael Bever and his brother hiding with a knife just beyond the crime scene.
Prosecutors will continue calling witnesses on Wednesday.
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