A Lennox man who bashed his nursing instructor's skull with a hammer in 2016 snapped and killed her in the heat of passion, his attorney told jurors Monday, but a prosecutor called it a premeditated murder.
Jackie Jerome Rogers, 35, is facing a first-degree murder count in the Dec. 18, 2016, death of 36-year-old Lisa Marie Naegle, a registered nurse whose naked body was found buried in a shallow grave in the defendant's backyard.
Naegle was married, but defense attorney Jeremy Lessem said the two had a sexual relationship and his client fell in love with the San Pedro woman, who was a contestant on the E! Entertainment Television series "Bridalplasty" in 2010.
Rogers used to help out in Naegle's classroom while taking classes to earn a nursing certificate, and the two would often go out to lunch together with another instructor, according to Deputy District Attorney Allyson Ostrowski. She said that friend is expected to testify that the two were typically "flirty," but Rogers seemed angry and snappish when she last saw them three days before the killing.
Ostrowski showed the jury a photo of a hammer, telling them Rogers "used this hammer to essentially bash in Lisa's head," then displayed a graphic image of the results. The defendant hit the victim "at least eight times," leaving "her skull in pieces," Ostrowski said.
Far from ready to leave her husband for Rogers, Naegle was going in for in vitro fertilization appointments the week before she was killed, the prosecutor told jurors.
Rogers was angry because Naegle wasn't returning his calls and texts and he sat outside her house on the Friday night before the killing, waiting until she came home around 2:30 a.m., Ostrowski said. The next night, Dec. 17, 2016, the two went to a party at Alpine Village, a German restaurant in Torrance, and left around 1:30 a.m., according to the restaurant's video surveillance footage.
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About an hour later, they went to a Jack in the Box restaurant.
Security cameras show the car leaving the drive-through lane and then parking across the street for roughly a half hour.
"That 30 minutes is when she was killed," Ostrowski told the jury.
Rogers lied and repeatedly told Naegle's husband, Derek Harryman, and other members of her family that Naegle had wanted to keep partying and he left her to go home, the prosecutor said.
When family members saw video from Alpine Village showing the two walking out together, they called 911.
Investigators found blood and Naegle's DNA in Rogers' car "from her head being slammed over and over again with that hammer," despite the fact that the car had been cleaned, Ostrowski said.
Naegle was found buried in a grave covered with dirt and manure in the back yard of the residence where Rogers lived with his parents in the 5000 block of West 106th Street.
Her clothing and jewelry have never been recovered.
Ostrowski anticipated that the defense would concede that Rogers killed Naegle.
"This case will not be a whodunit," she told the jury. "It will be a what is it."
The deputy district attorney said she thought the defense team might argue the killing was manslaughter.
Jurors should consider "what, if anything, did the victim do to provoke the defendant," whether that provocation caused him to act rashly, and "would that same provocation have caused a person of average disposition to also act rashly, to also kill?."
The evidence will show, Ostrowski said, that "he killed her with premeditation and that this is a murder in the first degree."
Defense attorney Lessem began his opening statement bluntly.
"My client, Mr. Rogers, is guilty," he told the jury. "Mr. Rogers took the life of Miss Naegle ... not in self-defense" and is "guilty of a very serious crime."
Lessem said it was not justifiable homicide, but that his client finally "broke" after months of being "toyed" with by Naegle.
She flirted with him and was sexually suggestive in class when other students weren't looking, the defense attorney said. When he passed his nursing certification and was no longer her student, Naegle took Rogers with other friends to Las Vegas in June 2016, where they slept together in a hotel room with another couple and ultimately had sex, Lessem said.
Nothing in Roger's life seemed to have been working out until he met Naegle, his attorney said.
"Nobody seemed to take him seriously," Lessem said. "She seemed to care. She seemed to understand."
She told Rogers she could get him a job at Kaiser, where she also worked, and he'd be able to buy a house of his own, Lessem said.
"For the first time in his life ... there was somebody who really cared about him," the defense attorney said.
She told Rogers that she and her husband weren't in love and called or texted Rogers nearly every day, according to Lessem, who said the two even talked about what they would name their children. But around other friends, Naegle mocked and ridiculed Rogers, who has developmental disabilities, calling him Lennie after the character from "Of Mice and Men," according to his attorney.
Naegle would tell others that Rogers was her gay friend and make fun of his appearance.
"It was torture for him" when she would "demoralize him on purpose," the defense attorney said, adding that she would also videotape him cleaning up her house to show to her friends and sometimes slap and hit him.
Rogers didn't like Naegle's partying and the fact that she did drugs and kissed strangers but thought that if he did everything she asked, he would win her over, Lessem said.
But the night of the party at Alpine Village, after "the repeated mental abuse over a six-month period" Rogers "was realizing that this was never going to stop," the defense attorney told the jury.
When Naegle started to hit Rogers in the parked car, he began crying and "just snapped. Something broke ... it all finally came crashing down," Lessem said.
"It's not enough to justify this. It's not enough to make this okay," he said. But "it was not a pre-planned murder. It was an act in the heat of passion.''
He sought to assure jurors that there would be no winners in this case and that his client would pay the price for his crime.
"Miss Naegle did not deserve to die. This is a tragedy," Lessem said, calling it "the act of a very damaged, very hurt person with intellectual deficits who broke down and did something he never should have done."
