Warning: The following content could be disturbing.
LEFLORE COUNTY (KFSM) — The defense spent Thursday morning (April 14) questioning Johnathen Thacker about his testimony of what he said happened to Briana Ault.
The defense questioned Thacker about the camping trip where he told jurors his brother, Elvis Thacker, forced him to perform oral sex on him. In his testimony, he mentioned two other people left to go get firewood when the alleged incident happened. The defense told Johnathen that one of those people will testify that they never left the two brothers during the trip.
Defense attorney Gretchen Mosely continued questioning Thacker and let him know who would take the stand after him.
“You make up stories all the time don’t you Johnathen?” Mosley asked.
Thacker replied with a simple “no.”
Mosley said the Thackers’ sister, Sandra, will testify that when Johnathen would claim people were raping him when he was growing up and got upset.
“I’ve never said that,” Johnathen Thacker said.
Mosley asked Johnathen Thacker why he didn’t try to stop his brother if the murder happened like he said.
“He had a knife in his hand,” he said.
“Hmmmmm. Is that right,” Mosley replied.
Mosley brought up a separate situation where Johnathen was quoted saying, “I am not going to have a knife pulled out on me.”
“You don’t have a problem taking on someone with a knife do you?” Mosley asked.
The two brothers were also accused of the rape of a Fort Smith woman shortly before Ault’s murder.
Mosley reminded Thacker that he previously told officers that Elvis Thacker didn’t rape a Fort Smith woman because Elvis Thacker was confined to crutches and couldn’t go anywhere at the time of the allegations.
Johnathen Thacker agreed with Mosley.
He had testified on Wednesday that his brother did rape the woman — an act Johnathen Thacker said he participated in.
“I had to start telling the truth,” Thacker said after Mosley questioned his change in testimony.
Both the prosecution and defense passed on questioning Johnathen Thacker a second time, so he was taken back to the LeFlore County Detention Center.
