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Aaron Ashley, a 34-year-old Richmond man who has a wife and three children, said, "I really believed I didn't do it."
Testifying in his trial in Alameda County Superior Court, in which he's accused of murdering 24-year-old Latrice Grayson as well as her unborn child, Ashley said, "I needed to believe I didn't do it and I could never do something like this."
Ashley said that on May 12, he finally decided to admit that he stabbed Grayson after his attorney, Darryl Stallworth, told him he would have to come clean about his involvement in her death.
Cross-examining Ashley today, prosecutor Casey Bates alleged that the only reason that Ashley decided to admit his involvement was because "the case against you was done," in part because Grayson's 5-year-old son had testified against him.
But Ashley denied Bates' allegation.
Ashley said he didn't call 911 when he left Grayson's home at 912 W. MacArthur Blvd. early on the morning of Sept. 7 because he didn't know that she was dying.
But Bates said Ashley must have known she was dying because he had stabbed her 23 times with a pair of scissors.
"You stabbed her until the blade of the scissors broke," Bates said.
Ashley said, "Sir, I didn't know what I was doing. I just totally lost it."
After Ashley was arrested in September, police alleged that he killed Grayson, who was eight and a half months pregnant, because she refused to get an abortion or give up the unborn child for adoption.
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