Slain Macon woman’s son: Flowers laughed and said, ‘I killed her’

After seeing her mother shot in the head, 21-year-old Tearro Moore knelt in the front of the minivan her mom had been driving.

Bridgette Flowers, 38, was still sitting in the driver’s seat as Moore shifted the van into reverse, then back into drive.

Gunshots struck the van as Moore drove away from her stepfather’s home on east Macon’s Trinity Place on Feb. 22, 2014.

Instead of driving to nearby Coliseum Medical Centers, Moore drove to the home she shared with her mother, siblings and others in the Davis Homes community

“I was trying to get to a safe place,” Moore testified Tuesday during the trial for 45-year-old Jasento Flowers.

Flowers, Bridgette Flowers’ estranged husband, is charged with murder and aggravated assault. His trial began Monday in Bibb County Superior Court.

Testimony in the case concluded late Tuesday. Jury deliberations are set to begin Wednesday.

Three witnesses testified Tuesday that they were at Bridgette’s home when Flowers came by looking for her on Valentine’s Day 2014. She was at a Wal-Mart.

The witnesses -- Moore, her boyfriend and Bridgette’s son -- each said Flowers was known to carry a gun and had one when he showed up looking for her.

Jamesia Williams, 20, testified that she was at the Gray Highway Wal-Mart with Bridgette when Flowers arrived and punched Bridgette -- a woman Williams viewed as a mother figure -- unconscious.

Williams said Bridgette was her child’s grandmother. She lived with Bridgette and her family.

Jurors viewed surveillance video of the altercation.

About a week later, on Feb. 22, 2014, family members gathered at Bridgette’s house for a cookout.

Bridgette, her sister, Moore, Williams and a friend of Bridgette’s left the party to buy tequila at a nearby liquor store. Before returning to the party, Bridgette drove to Trinity Place to drop off her friend.

After Bridgette turned around in Flowers’ driveway, the friend got out of the van and argued with her boyfriend. Flowers walked up and asked “what’s the problem,” testimony showed.

Then, Flowers took two steps and shot Bridgette in the face, Moore testified.

The shot was fired from an open passenger-side rear door, said Ranoda Hammonds, Bridgette’s sister.

A GBI medical examiner testified that Bridgette’s injury was unsurvivable, one that would have caused death within minutes due to brain bruising, swelling and bleeding.

After arriving back at the party on Maynard Street, multiple witnesses saw Flowers’ BMW drive by with someone inside shooting, according to testimony. Williams, Moore, and Bridgette’s son, 22-year-old Deontress Moore, identified the driver as Flowers.

Williams was shot in the leg. Moore’s boyfriend, 20-year-old Onterio Smith, was grazed in the leg.

Deontress Moore testified that he called Flowers after the drive-by -- and after being told he was the man who’d killed his mother.

“He laughed and said, ‘I killed her,’ ” Moore testified Tuesday. “It was just a laughing matter to him.”

Moore said he set off for Trinity Place after the call to search for his mother’s killer.

In his opening statement to jurors Monday, Flowers’ lawyer, Travis Griffin, said Bridgette’s family’s version of the events -- that his car window was lowered as shots were fired at them on Maynard Street -- can’t be true.

Flowers’ car windows weren’t working, Griffin said.

Bridgette’s family has conspired to pin the killing on Flowers, making him a “patsy,” he said.

The defense called Richard Bridgeman, a Macon mechanic, to testify Tuesday afternoon.

Bridgeman said he repaired Flowers’ BMW in 2012 and at that time, the windows didn’t work. While he performed other repairs, he didn’t fix the windows.

Elise Simmons, Flowers’ sister, testified that the car was towed to her house after police released it.

She said the car has been covered and wasn’t tampered with before her family hired another mechanic to inspect the windows in recent months.

The mechanic hired by the Flowers family, Darren Bivens, testified that he too had worked on the BMW in the past, but had not been asked to repair the windows.

The windows weren’t working when he examined them, he said.

Asked by the prosecution if he knew if the windows were working on Feb. 22, 2014, the day of the shootings, Bivens said he didn’t know.

To contact writer Amy Leigh Womack, call 744-4398.

This story was originally published June 30, 2015 at 10:43 AM with the headline "Slain Macon woman’s son: Flowers laughed and said, ‘I killed her’."