Testimony continued Thursday in the attempted murder trial of James Hataway, who is accused of trying to break a woman’s neck.
A convicted felon, who once shared a cell with Hataway, took the stand. Thomas Malloy’s face was blocked by curtains in a Seminole County courtroom after the judge agreed to hide Malloy’s face because he's in a federal protection program.
“I got to know him pretty well. He’s a bad guy. He don’t need to be on the street again,” Malloy said of Hataway.
Malloy told jurors that Hataway admitted to attacking the Casselberry woman after a 2008 party.
“He had the girl and was choking her and someone else showed up. He said he was glad they showed up when they did, because he would have killed her.”
Malloy said Hataway often talked about an infatuation for choking women.
“He called it a broken stick in a sock,” said Malloy. “He liked making references to that’s how a neck felt whenever it was broken.”
But the defense hammered Malloy, saying he was desperate to get his sentence reduced off of his seven felony convictions.
Jurors heard the testimony from Hataway's alleged victim, Rachel Clarke, on Wednesday. She claims Hataway tried to strangle her and slammed her head on the ground at least four times during the attack in 2008.
"I was in fear for my life. I thought he was going to kill me," said Clarke during the trial Wednesday. “I was telling him to stop, it hurts. You’re hurting me. Please let go and I was able to slip out."
“He kind of like fish hooked my mouth and was trying to snap my neck again,” said Clarke. And during the attack, Clarke said Hataway told her, “Don’t make me kill you.”
Hataway’s also allegedly linked to the disappearances of Tracy Ocasio and Chris George, but those cases won’t be mentioned in this trial.
Both their mothers said they are following the Hataway trial intently.
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