TAMPA, Fla — The murder trial of Justin McGriff, the man accused of stabbing and killing a Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority (HART) bus driver in 2019, continued Monday as the defense presented their case.
Closing arguments were originally set for Feb. 28, but the judge granted a request from lawyers for another week to prepare.
McGriff is charged with first-degree murder in the death of driver Thomas Dunn, and if convicted, he could face life in prison.
Tampa police say McGriff boarded a HART bus around 4 p.m. on May 18, 2019, armed with a weapon hidden in his right hand.
According to an arrest affidavit, McGriff told Dunn, "God bless you" twice before slitting the driver's throat.
The defense presented its case Monday. It has implied McGriff's mental health led to his actions during opening statements last month.
McGriff's mother and two sisters traveled from Oklahoma and testified Monday. The family said they noticed behavioral changes from McGriff after coming back from California around 2017 with almost nothing.
"He just wasn't the same," his mother Frances McGriff said through tears. "I know something was wrong."
The family testified McGriff would talk to himself and believe someone was out to get him. He would often distance himself from family, they said.
Others, who knew McGriff through a boarding house they lived in, testified his behavior was especially different the week before his arrest.
In court last month, the state played surveillance video captured on the bus that day. Witnesses told investigators there was no provocation before the attack, which was supported by the surveillance footage.
The state then called to the stand several witnesses, including passengers on the bus and several members of law enforcement.
Officer Travis Richards was among them. He testified through body camera video that McGriff ran away before several law enforcement partners aided Richards in arresting McGriff near the road.
The death penalty is no longer on the table for McGriff after The Hillsborough County State Attorney’s Office in 2020 said it learned of evidence of his mental illness.
“This awful attack on a public servant shocked us all, and our office remains focused on obtaining justice for the victim’s family through a murder conviction,” a spokesperson for the state attorney's office said at the time.
In 2019, McGriff was found incompetent to stand trial and sent to a state hospital, where doctors worked to restore his competency.
Following Dunn's death, both HART and the Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority (PSTA) installed safety barriers on their buses in an effort to protect drivers.
The custom-fit protective barriers have extended tempered glass shields that cover the drivers' space. Signs on the shields warn passengers that assaulting a driver is a crime.
HART also upgraded its surveillance camera systems, armed the security guards at transit stations, and had its drivers do de-escalation training with Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office.
10 Investigates found that attacks on bus drivers in Hillsborough County spiked the year Dunn was killed, with nearly 500 bus drivers between 2017 and 2019 reporting they had been physically or verbally attacked by passengers.