The trial is expected to last a month.
OAKLAND — The grisly shoreline discovery last year of a Pleasanton woman’s headless and dismembered corpse — and the potential lack of concrete evidence for exactly how she died — took center stage Wednesday during opening statements in the murder trial of her boyfriend.
Standing before the jury, prosecutor Courtney Burris asked the jury to focus on what happened before and after that discovery. She described how Buckner’s demeanor changed sometime after she met Roberts at Golden Gate University School of Law in 2019, with Buckner having stopped responding to friends amid alleged “evidence of control” on the part of Roberts. Then, Burris said, came the calls to police from neighbors who heard arguing from the couple’s Pleasanton apartment.
“I want you to pay attention to what makes sense, and the totality of the evidence,” Burris added. “This is not an ‘Ah-ha’ case, where you have just one smoking gun that tells you exactly what happened.” The attorney also sought to explain away the new carpeting and bank account activity after Buckner disappeared, saying the couple shared their financial accounts. Their apartment managers had inspected the carpet months before her disappearance, suggesting it “100% needed to be replaced,” he said.
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