TRAVIS COUNTY, Texas -- On Thursday, Judge Julie Kocurek testified against the man accused of trying to kill her in 2015, saying that when she was struck that night, she thought, "I'm being murdered in front of my son."
Several days before the shooting, on Oct. 30, 2015, Kocurek testified that she was jogging around her neighborhood when she noticed a man. She said he was staring at her and wasn't in workout clothes. She said she waved at him.
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Kocurek said that on Nov. 5, 2015, she and her husband were eating at home when she got two phone calls from Houston.
The next day, she was shot.
"That’s the day I was shot and our world was basically shattered," Kocurek testified.
She was coming home from a high school football game and her family pulled into their driveway. There was a bag blocking it, which she thought was “weird.”
She testified that looking back she should have gone with her gut and stopped.
She said her son got out of the car and began hopping around and then "there was a blast."
"There were pops ... a wall of metal," she testified. "There was so much that hit me."
She said she thought, "I'm being murdered in front of my son. I remember screaming, 'He got me, he got me.'"
“I was just trying to live,” said Kocurek. She said she saw a light gray or green sedan’s lights on. She said after the shooting happened, “I felt like they were going to come back."
She said that she collapsed on her front porch, afraid that the shooter was going to come back and attack the rest of her family.
“Everybody was screaming ... It was awful ..." she said. "I was hit so many times.”
She said she remembers her son “telling me goodbye like he wasn’t going to see me again.” She said “I just remember those were the darkest moments of my life.”
Prosecutors claim Chimene Onyeri planned the attack on Judge Kocurek because he was angry she revoked his probation after a parole violation. Onyeri is accused of trying to shoot the judge on Nov. 6, 2015. The bullets missed her, but shrapnel injured her face and hand.
Onyeri also took the stand Thursday. He began his testimony by talking about his Nigerian background.
Regarding the trial, he testified, "I'm happy with how everything is going." He said that "when this case first started, I didn’t think I would get a fair trial ... It’s been fair.”
Throughout his testimony, he has been getting ahead of his defense attorney and snickering.
In Kocurek's testimony she said she's endured numerous surgeries since the shooting to deal with infections.
“It was a very dark time," she said. "At one point I felt so damaged I wanted to die. I felt like my family would be better off without me."
The court is in recess until testimony continues Monday at 9 a.m.
Reporter Rebeca Trejo is tweeting updates from the courtroom. Follow her for the latest: