Jurors in Las Vegas heard harrowing new details regarding former UFC and Bellator fighter War Machine’s vicious assaults on former girlfriend Christy Mack and her then-boyfriend Corey Thomas during opening statements on Monday.
“This is it, I’ve got to kill you now,” War Machine told Mack after brutally assaulting her back on August 8, 2014.
War Machine is facing 34 felony charges including attempted murder, sexual assault and kidnapping following the attacks on Mack and Thomas.
Much of Monday’s court session revolved around Thomas’ testimony. According to Thomas, War Machine initially focused his rage on him, punching him repeatedly before putting him in a choke hold, according to The Las Vegas Review Journal. The jury listened to Mack’s frantic call to 911, with Mack screaming for her ex-boyfriend to “let (Thomas) go”.
Thomas claims to have been on the verge of going unconscious as War Machine, born Jonathan Koppenhaver, choked him to the point where Thomas says he thought he would “die in Christy’s bathroom”.
War Machine, 35, then turned his attention to Mack, leaving her with ten broken bones, broken teeth, along with a fractured rib and a lacerated liver.
This was not the first time Koppenhaver had assaulted Mack, according to the prosecution, who asserted that the former MMA fighter had “slammed (Mack’s) head into a dashboard” as well as put her into chokeholds.
War Machine went on the lam immediately after the vicious assaults, and was eventually found weeks later hiding out at a motel room in California.
Opening statements are set to resume on Tuesday.
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