The civil trial of the homicide of Shirley Carter entered its eighth day on Wednesday with the defendant Jason Carter on the stand being cross examined by his lawyers.

Jason Carter continued to answer questions about the timeline the day of the murder as well as texts he sent that morning. Following the questioning of Carter the lawyers for Bill Carter rested their case.

The defense then called their first witness, Independent Forensic Science Consultant Gary Rini to the stand. Rini told the jury about the different methods used for investigating a crime scene and was asked questions regarding the crime scene photos. Rini told the jury he had no opinion as to if the scene was a staged burglary but during cross examination was shown that he had stated in a November report he believed the scene to be staged. Rini suggested that there were problems with the DCI investigation of the scene.

The plaintiff called Jason Hoch, an agricultural banker with Wells Fargo in Knoxville. He testified that Broadview Farms, owned by Jason and Shelly Carter, were good clients. He testified that there was no reason to believe that Jason and Shelly were in financial trouble, and that he considers Jason a good farmer.

Upon cross examination, Hoch agreed that the farm didn’t pay off their loan each year, and at one time they owed the bank as much as $566,000, although this is common practice among farmers. Lawyers for the plaintiff asked about the personal relationship between Hoch and Jason Carter, and implied that a hunting trip the two took with approximately a dozen others to New Zealand could be construed as a conflict of interest. Hoch’s father organized the trip. The plaintiff’s lawyer also showed that a transfer of $52,500 from the Broadview Farms line of credit to the Jason and Shelly Carter personal account happened the same month as the New Zealand trip, and that some or all of the expenses for the trip came out of that personal account. Hoch agreed this was a concern that money that came out of the farm account was used for non-business expenses. Lawyers for the plaintiff also determined that Wells Fargo did not determine that Broadview Farms was actually holding grain in reserve for the next year, instead taking Jason Carter’s word for it.

The trial continues tomorrow.