Jasmine Pace
A city detective testified Friday that a cleaning crew found large amounts of blood at an apartment in North Chattanooga where Jasmine Pace was allegedly murdered.
Detective Zac Crawford said the bio-hazard crew stopped work and called police after locating the blood when a bed was moved. He said additional blood was found to have soaked down beneath bathroom tile.
An attorney for Jason Chen, who is charged in the gruesome slaying, is seeking to have evidence thrown out due to the victim's mother going into the Chen apartment several times and removing items.
Attorney Crawford said crime scene technicians then did another inspection of apt. 210 at the Lofts at Tremont, 110 Tremont St., in North Chattanooga.
He said blood was located and samples collected of the blood that had gone beneath the carpet and two subfloors. There were also blood samples taken from where it had seeped beneath the tile.
He also said that a mass of blood on the bedroom floor seemed to match the frame of an individual the size of Jasmine Pace.
The detective said it was later learned that she was handcuffed when she was killed.
District Attorney Coty Wamp introduced evidence that Chen may have gone back inside his apartment on Nov. 27, 2022, hours before police arrived with a search warrant.
Detective Crawford said it was learned, after police had been able to obtain Chen cellphone records, that he had left his parents' home at Nolensville, Tn., around 1 or 2 p.m. and headed to Chattanooga. He was in the vicinity of his apartment between 6-7 p.m., the detective said the cellphone records showed. Police arrived shortly before midnight.
Attorney Josh Weiss introduced photos taken off bodycam when two patrol officers went into the apartment and later photos from the time the crime scene techs arrived with a search warrant.
He said it showed a number of items had been moved around, cabinets opened, etc. He noted that Katrina Pace, mother of the victim, said she had gone in the apartment some three times prior to homicide detectives getting involved.
Joseph Seech, a former city detective who is now a veterans affairs coordinator in Michigan, recalled how he had written up the search warrant for the Chen apartment.
He said the case was first a missing persons, "then it started looking like we were looking at a homicide or a kidnapping."
A tape was played of a conversation between Detective Crawford, Pace attorney Ben McGowan and the Pace family, in which there was discussion of entering the apartment ahead of getting a search warrant.
Detective Crawford said sometimes there were issues of "preservation of life" that mandated going ahead "even if it tarnishes our investigation and skips the hoops."
Catrina Pace testified earlier that she was desperate to find her daughter and felt she was not getting full help from police initially. The body of Jasmine Pace was eventually found stuffed in a suitcase and dumped along Suck Creek Road.
A property manager for Wise Properties, owner of the apartment complex, said there had to be an extensive cleanup and gutting of apt. 210 after the incident. She said the bio-hazard cleanup itself cost over $7,000 and the total bill, that was paid by Chen's father, was over $20,000.
Cassidy Buffington said, "It was a long time before we were able to rent that apartment again - when people learned what had happened there. It really hurt the reputation of our property."