Retrial For Cedar Park Man Accused Of Strangling Woman To Move Forward

CEDAR PARK, TX -- A judge on Wednesday declared that retrial for a man accused of strangling a Cedar Park woman in 2009 will move forward.

Crispin Harmel is accused of strangling Jessika Kalaher, 27. Her body was later found in a car outside of a Cedar Park Walmart, as various media outlets reported.

Harmel's first trial ended in a mistrial last year based on attorney's disputes over surveillance video. At the time, officials at the Williamson County District Attorney's Office said the video dispute was sparked after defense attorneys complained they were not able to access that bit of evidence.

As KXAN News reported at the time, jurors viewed surveillance video showing both the victim and the suspect at the Walmart. Kalaher is seen going into the Walmart, with Crispin not far behind.

Crispin is then seen walking in Kalaher’s direction, a site away from where he had parked his own vehicle.

A later examination of Kalaher's bank records show an ATM withdrawal and gasoline purchase. The surveillance photo timed the purchase to images in the surveillance video, showing Crispin getting gas with the victim's card, prosecutors alleged.

As KXAN reported, Harmel’s attorney argued the Walmart surveillance video had been sprung on the defense with no warning. Assistant DA Mark Brunner insisted prosecutors made the video clips available but the defense was not able to open them.

DA Jana Duty advanced that stance, telling the television station the surveillance video was made available to the defense long before, but Crispin's attorneys weren't ablre to get the precise embedded timeline to display correctly on a computer.

“The defense apparently took this to mean no timeline could ever be shown in court to a jury and premised their strategy accordingly,” Duty said in an emailed statement to KXAN at the time. “There was no hiding or withholding of evidence on the state’s part. We simply found a way to play back the evidence in court in a manner that the defense could not for whatever reason do themselves.”

In the end, however, that video dispute ultimately set the stage for a mistrial. Crispin is currently in jail on other charges, with his release scheduled for 2020.

After that, he'll be scheduled to stand trial for the woman's murder, KEYE reported.

>>> Booking photo of suspect courtesy of Williamson County law enforcement officials