GLYNN COUNTY, Ga. — In some of the most consequential testimony yet in the trial of the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, a deposition was shown in court with the owner of an unfinished home at the center of the case and included a 911 call he made about a white couple entering onto the property and his concern about them potentially being there to steal something.
The deposition shown in court was with Larry English, who owned the home under construction in the Satilla Shores neighborhood where Arbery was shot near.
That home is where Arbery went into and glanced around moments before father and son Greg and Travis McMichael initiated the pursuit through the neighborhood that ended with Travis shooting him.
Defense attorneys have focused on Arbery allegedly being seen on home surveillance videos entering onto the property a number of times in the months leading up to his death and becoming in the minds of some neighbors - including the men accused of murder in the trial - a "suspect" in break-ins and thefts around the neighborhood.
There is no evidence Arbery ever took anything or committed any damage at the home, and the owner has said he did not suspect Arbery of taking anything.
Instead, in videos and 911 calls shown through the deposition, English explicitly referenced his concern with stealing in relation to a white couple seen coming onto the property.
On the night they could be seen, English made at least three calls to 911 from his home in Coffee County about 90 minutes away (the home under construction was to be his second home).
In one, he referenced seeing them with "some kind of bag" and "I thought to call y'all as quick as possible." He goes on to describe it as a "tool bag" and said, "I think they might be trying to steal."
In a second call, he said he thinks the couple is who stole items out of his offshore fishing boat that was on the property. English said in his deposition that about $2,500 of electronic equipment, as well as a Yeti cooler, was taken out of the boat sometime in 2019.
"I know that first time they went in and stole," he said, with some of the rest of his call muffled.
After prosecutors had English review the videos and calls with the night the white couple went onto the property, they played English back his surveillance videos of Arbery going onto the property at night multiple times in the weeks up to and on the day of his death.
Those videos showed Arbery wandering around the property, but otherwise not touching or taking anything, and with no bag or backpack of any sort to store anything in.