ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — Jury selection is set to start on Monday for a murder trial involving a cold case from over 20 years ago. DeMorris Hunter faces charges for the 2002 murder of Theresa Green in College Park.
Hunter has been detained in Orange County Jail for 11 years as he awaits trial for Green’s death, 24 years after Green was discovered in a car trunk.
He is also serving four life sentences in California for an unrelated murder of another woman, who was killed a few months prior to Green.
In May 2002, Theresa Green was discovered dead inside the trunk of an abandoned sedan in a Sanford parking lot. Investigators soon identified Hunter as the main suspect. At the time of the murder, Hunter had recently relocated to Orlando and was using the alias Michael Berry.
Hunter left Florida soon after Green’s body was discovered. Two years later, in 2004, police arrested him in Texas. He was then extradited to California to face charges for the murder of another woman, who was killed just months prior to Green’s discovery. Hunter was convicted of that murder and received four life sentences in California.
In 2014, Hunter was indicted by an Orange County grand jury for Green’s death. He was extradited to Florida in 2015 to face a new murder charge. Hunter has been incarcerated for the past 25 years, spanning his time in California and Florida.
Over the past 11 years, the legal process in Orange County has faced numerous delays. Hunter has had at least six different public defenders since arriving at the Orange County Jail. His trial date has been postponed multiple times during his decade-long wait for a jury.
Defense attorneys have submitted motions to exclude the death penalty as a potential sentence if Hunter is convicted. However, those efforts have not succeeded yet, and the death penalty is still on the table for prosecutors.
Jury selection is set to start tomorrow morning, with the trial expected to continue in Orange County court after the jury members are chosen.
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