TUCSON, Ariz. - A jury has found a 39-year-old Tucson man guilty of killing his 13-year-old stepdaughter.
Jurors began deliberating Thursday morning in the case against Joshua Lelevier on charges of killing Jayden Glomb. They delivered their verdict less than four hours later.
Lelevier is facing a variety of other charges, including sexual exploitation of a minor for planting cameras in the teen’s bathroom that were able to capture nude images of her. He was found guilty on those counts, as well.
The jury convicted Lelevier on eight counts in all: One count of first-degree murder, two counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, two counts of taking surreptitious photos and videos, two counts of voyeurism and one count of abandonment and concealment of a body.
When the judge asked each juror if this was indeed their verdict, they all answered, "yes." One even said, "without a doubt."
The cameras were a key part of the case. Prosecutors presented evidence Jayden Glomb knew her stepfather was trying to catch photos of her in intimate settings. She texted a friend that she saw Lelevier slip his phone under the bathroom door apparently trying to catch a photo of her coming out of the shower.
She told the friend she would tell her mother about the incident but the case presented no evidence that she ever did.
Prosecutors did not present any evidence directly tying Lelevier to the young girl’s strangulation. No murder weapon was ever found that might have shown Lelevier’s fingerprints or DNA.
Instead, prosecutors have relied on Lelevier’s behavior in the time surrounding his stepdaughter’s disappearance.
They focused on what they described was a fake suicide note written as if it came from Jayden Glomb but composed at a time of day when Jayden was at school and only Lelevier had access to her computer.
Prosecutors claim Lelevier faked a strangulation attack on himself in his own backyard as if to divert suspicion to a mysterious attacker in the family’s Vail neighborhood. But prosecutors pointed out the night Lelevier says he was attacked only investigators—-and the killer—-knew Jayden Glomb had been strangled.
Tucson Police detectives found the bathroom surveillance cameras many days after Jayden Glomb’s body was found. A police computer expert was able to recover nude pictures of the girl in her bathroom that had been deleted from Lelevier’s computer.
On the witness stand Lelevier claimed he planted the cameras because he suspected the teen had been secretly drinking alcohol and wanted to gather proof. But under questioning by prosecutors he conceded he never told detectives his suspicions about alcohol use even though it might have had a bearing on her murder and he did not take the much simpler step of searching her room.
Lelevier’s defense attorneys told the jury he was within his rights as a parent to plant cameras to monitor his stepchild’s behavior. They also told the jury Lelevier was the victim of a real attack that just did not succeed in killing him.
Defense attorneys also cast doubt on very small traces of Jayden Glomb’s blood found in the cargo area of the family’s SUV.
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