photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Rodney Marshall is pictured Tuesday, May 12, 2026, at his double-murder trial in Douglas County District Court.

During Rodney Marshall’s police-station confession to fatally shooting two Lawrence men, he took a break to call his mother in California.

“It’s been a weird week, Mom,” he says, in a 2022 video seen by jurors Tuesday at his double-murder trial. “I got into some legal trouble out here in Kansas.”

He tells his mom he loves her and doesn’t want her to have a heart attack.

After a stretch of silence on the video — one of many stretches that jurors were not allowed to hear — he continues: “I want you guys to be proud of me. … I gave myself up.”

“Did anyone die?” his mother asks.

“Maybe someone not innocent,” he replies.

The day before, jurors had watched video of Marshall confessing in a police car to killing Shelby McCoy, 52, and William D. O’Brien, 43. He told Detective M.T Brown that he had dressed as the Joker on July 31, 2022, and had ridden his moped to McCoy’s apartment on Tennessee Street, then to O’Brien’s residence on Northwood Lane. He said he did so because the country singer Charlie Daniels had somehow inspired him to seek vengeance against “child molesters” and to restore the “balance of justice” and the “yin and yang of right and wrong.”

Police have said they have no reason to believe either man had committed any sex crimes against children.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Detective M.T. Brown watches a video of his 2022 interview with Rodney Marshall on Tuesday, May 12, 2026, in Douglas County District Court.

During the police-station interview, which jurors spent over an hour watching Tuesday, Marshall appeared to change his story, indicating that he had gone to McCoy’s not to exact vigilante justice over a pedophile on his “list” but to taunt him over a lost bet involving sex and McCoy’s “chick.” When questioned by Brown over the changing explanation, Marshall said both motives were behind his actions, but he also said that he had shot McCoy after McCoy had first pointed a gun at him.

At one point during the interview, Marshall asked Brown, “I’m a hard guy to figure out, huh?”

Defense attorneys Jennifer Amyx and Branden Bell objected, as they also had on Monday, to jurors seeing the confession video, but Judge Amy Hanley had already ruled both videos admissible.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Attorneys in the Rodney Marshall double-murder trial meet at the judge’s bench on Tuesday, May 12, 2026.

Tuesday’s video also contained further instances of Marshall talking about an illicit drug he had taken called “dragon’s blood” or “dragon’s tears,” which he likened to the hallucinogenic drug PCP. He also mentioned that the drug might have led to “a case of temporary insanity” and he asked the detectives interviewing him whether Kansas had the death penalty.

The drug has been a prominent part of the trial as the defense has sought to show that Marshall was “whacked out” under its influence on the day of the crimes and the confessions.

Brown testified that although Marshall had told him that he used drugs — “all drugs” — he appeared coherent, understood what he was being asked and communicated clearly.

During a lengthy cross-examination, Amyx challenged that view, characterizing Marshall’s rambling, “unconstrained speech” to police as “a word vomit situation” — a situation that she suggested was the effect of Marshall being high on PCP and not in touch with reality. She also tried to get Brown to acknowledge that Marshall was behaving in ways typical of someone under the influence of a hallucinogenic drug, including being paranoid and having grandiose delusions, wanting to be a martyr and speaking in “word salad.”

At one point during an interview, Marshall said he had “sacrificed” himself for the cause, that he was “an avatar” and that he was going to be “a big deal.” He said the detectives interviewing him might even find themselves in the “history books.” But he also mentioned needing “to come back to reality.”

Brown steadfastly disagreed with the notion that Marshall was “whacked out.”

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Prosecutor David Melton questions Detective M.T. Brown on Tuesday, May 12, 2026, at the double-murder trial of Rodney Marshall.

The state, represented by prosecutors David Melton and Eve Kemple, rested its case late Tuesday afternoon, at which time the defense team began presenting their own witnesses, including two women who testified about hearing commotion in their neighborhoods the night of the shootings and one woman who worked at a U-Haul store and said she saw store video of Marshall behaving strangely, as if “on some type of drug,” with a cat and “a lot of money” on him.

The defense’s last witness of the day — a retired forensic pathologist from Sedgwick County — testified outside of the jury’s presence because Judge Hanley had not yet decided if the jury could hear what she had to say. Hanley had previously ruled that toxicology tests showing drugs in Marshall’s system days after the crimes were not admissible, but the defense sought to bring in Dr. Jamie Oeberst to give her opinion — not state the fact — that Marshall was on PCP during the crimes.

The state objected that Oeberst’s “opinion” was nothing more than a restatement of what was in the disallowed toxicology report. And Hanley herself had expressed the concern that Oeberst lacked sufficient specific knowledge of Marshall and the circumstances to render an actual, allowable “expert” opinion.

Defense attorney Bell beseeched the court to let the jury hear Oeberst.

“This evidence is integral to Mr. Marshall’s defense,” he pleaded, framing the matter as a constitutional necessity.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Prosecutor David Melton cross-examines Dr. Jamie Oeberst Tuesday, May 12, 2026, at the double-murder trial of Rodney Marshall.

The exchanges with Oeberst were some of the most heated of the day, with Amyx animatedly insisting that Oeberst had legitimately formed an admissible opinion and Melton pressing the doctor to articulate how her opinion differed from the simple facts in the toxicology results from four years ago.

“How do you form an opinion about something that is a fact?” he asked several times, causing Oeberst at one point to either laugh or to become unintelligibly emotional, prompting Melton to ask her what was so funny.

As she was excused from the stand, she looked over at Marshall and winked before exiting the courtroom.

Hanley will decide on Wednesday whether Oeberst’s testimony on the PCP issue will be allowed. The trial is set to resume at 8:30 a.m., again outside the presence of the jurors, who will take their seats later in the morning.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Rodney Marshall is pictured Tuesday, May 12, 2026, at his double-murder trial with attorney Jennifer Amyx.