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Victim's mother, district attorney take stand during court hearing to dismiss Breanna Wood murder case

Fallon Wood took the stand to answer questions about her access to case files in the Nueces County District Attorney's office on the murder of her daughter.

Accused killer Joseph Tejeda was in court Wednesday as his defense team joined the attorneys for Sandra Vasquez to try and get their murder cases thrown out.

Both are accused of taking part in the 2016 death of 21 year old Breanna Wood.

It's the latest motion brought forth by defense attorneys and heard by Judge Manuel Banales.

You might recall last week other motions by the attorneys representing the suspects in this case were denied.

During Wednesday's hearing, Fallon Wood took the stand to answer questions about her access to case files in the Nueces County District Attorney's office on the murder of her daughter.

Tejeda was present in the courtroom while Vasquez listened in by phone.

"She kept saying she needed help and at that point what can I do," said Fallon Wood.

Wood discussed a meeting between her and assistant district attorney Angelica Hernandez.

"She started bawling, crying, and she said that she needed help and Mark was never here. He doesn't come here, doesn't give me help. She looks around her office with all the boxes everywhere," Wood said.

Wood said she returned to the courthouse where she was led to a room in the DA's office.

It's where she claims she was allowed to organize the contents of her daughter's murder case and take notes.

"She never mentioned it would hurt Bre's case by me doing this, just said to keep this between us," said Wood.

Assistant District Attorney Angelica Hernandez also took the stand.

"It was one of the times that she came in, she was again upset that nothing was happening on the case.  She wanted to try to help, so I tried to explain to her," Hernandez said. "At that point we were trying to work out a plea deal with Mr. Tejeda, it was going to be during that time period, and I was trying to help her understand the nature of the case, all quite honestly all those records are public documents."

Hernandez took over the Tejeda case from the former assistant district attorney Rey Pena who also took the stand Wednesday.

Pena was asked about the contents of envelopes said to be in his possession that contained phones and other notes from Wood's own private investigation after she said no one else would take it.

"I thought that Pena was coming back on Bre's case so I gave it to him," said Wood.

District Attorney Mark Gonzalez also took the stand and was asked about the DA's office decision to recuse itself from the case.

During questioning the DA said there was a grievance filed against him by Fallon Wood.

"I guess the relationship with the victim's mother. This is not a disqualification, it's a voluntary removal and so, we can volunteer or ask the court to remove us if anything may seem to be just not right or we do not want it to look bad.  We have a victim's mother who hasn't sued me but filed a grievance against me has done multiple interviews with media outlets, I have a gag order but I've seen those, and we can't communicate with her. and so if we don't have that good relationship then obviously I would think it would be sound to say we can't, we don't want her to think we're doing this or that because of the relationship we have with her," said Gonzalez.

When asked if he would condone an assistant DA opening the file up to a witness unsupervised,  "I wouldn't necessarily condone unsupervised, but every circumstance is different and I think that everyone I have in our office is entrusted to do what they feel is appropriate," said Gonzalez.

The Attorney General's office has since taken over the case.

Trial dates for Tejeda and Vasquez are set for next year.

The court will reconvene the week of the 29th to hear more testimony in this motion hearing.

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