Vincent Battaglia

Vincent Battaglia testified for the prosecution on Day 5 about sounds he heard while living next door to Sarah Boone and Jorge Torres at Tealwood Apartments. He described almost daily arguing through thin walls and recalled Boone asking him not to discuss what he heard about four or five months before February 2020. He generally paid little attention to the arguments and could not clearly make out their content.

For February 23, 2020, Battaglia recalled arguing, an unusual rumbling noise that shook his bedroom wall, some shuffling, and then silence. The noise seemed to move closer to his position, but he did not identify its cause. His roommate, Brandon Moats, also described a late-night crash that shook their rooms, without identifying what caused it.

On cross-examination, Battaglia acknowledged that work and school kept him away at varying hours and that reports of police visits came from neighbors rather than his own observations. He agreed that Boone and Torres both drank to excess. He rejected James Owens's suggested 7 p.m. arrival home, estimating that he returned around 1 or 2 in the afternoon. On redirect, he placed the loud noise around 11:00 or 11:15, probably 30 to 45 minutes after audible arguing began. The defense withdrew its recall request after counsel discussed his travel arrangements, and the court released him without recall.

In closing argument, Owens disputed the neighbors' dating of the noise, contending that they had confused it with an alleged stair incident from the preceding night. That was the defense's interpretation, not an identification by Battaglia of what produced the sound.