Jury hears 911 tape in Garrard Murder Trial

Savanna Hardin

Jurors in the Joyce Garrard trial sat through some disturbing new details Tuesday about the day 9-year-old Savanna Hardin collapsed after running for hours.

Eleven witnesses took the stand on Tuesday. Former neighbors described what they saw that day and they said the little girl begged for relief.

Jurors also heard from the Sardis City Police Chief but the most powerful piece of information heard was the 911 call and testimony from the emergency operator.

911 operator Lori Beth Beggs testified that Jessica Hardin, Savannah Hardin's stepmother, made the 911 call that day saying the 9-year-old girl had had a seizure.

Beggs said as Jessica Hardin spoke she said she heard Joyce Garrard in the background calling Savannah's name over and over again. However, she said both women sounded "unusually calm" pointing out that at one point Garrard can be heard saying, "Somebody give me a smoke or something." When she asks if the child has had any medical problems before that day she was told no.

Jolie Jacobs, the wife of a witness who testified on Monday, also took the stand. Her husband first noticed Savannah Hardin running earlier in the day. Around 6:30 p.m., Jacobs said she heard Garrard yelling at the girl in a "hateful" tone and said she saw Savannah on her hands and knees, crying, begging and failing to drink water Garrard was trying to pour in her mouth because she was vomiting.

A paramedic that responded to the scene about three hours after a neighbor first noticed the girl running also testified.

Daniel Wilke said when he first saw Savannah Hardin that February evening, she was unresponsive, cold to the touch and dressed in a t-shirt with a blanket wrapped around her lower half.

He said the blanket was wet enough that he could have wrung water out of it.

He said as he and his partner tried to treat Hardin, Garrard kept getting in the ambulance and was acting in an aggressive and combative manner, saying she wanted to ride with her.

Wilkey said when he asked what happened, Garrard told him the girl had had a seizure in the living room. Later, at the hospital, he heard her tell doctors she'd fallen on the steps outside.