ATLANTA — A Fulton County judge is considering the evidence prosecutors will be able to use when two alleged killers of Clark Atlanta University student Alexis Crawford go on trial. Barron Brantley and Jordyn Jones will go on trial separately.

The State says the two killed Crawford days after she filed a police report accusing Brantley--who was then Jones’s boyfriend--of sexual assault in late October, 2019.

Crawford and Jones were roommates at Clark Atlanta, and believed to be best friends.

Alexis’s body was found in a park in DeKalb County, with authorities stating she died by asphyxiation.

The defendants were both in court Wednesday for a motions hearing, where the morning’s action dealt with proposed expert witnesses. The DA’s Office is seeking to have a strangulation expert testify about the length of time it takes to strangle someone, and what happens with a victim leading up to that death. They contend that that timeline will not allow Brantley and Jones to claim, “Oops, we didn’t know she would die,” said Deputy District Attorney Asia Baysah.

There is also a potential expert witness who would discuss why sexual assault victims delay disclosing their assaults.

Defense attorneys said that testimony was irrelevant.

Lawyers for both defendants sought in questioning to show that the would-be sex assault report witness can’t recall key details of the timeline surrounding Crawford’s allegation of sexual assault and when she made an outcry.

“You cannot apply principles and methods to the facts of the case if you don’t know what the facts are,” said Brantley attorney Jennifer Lubinsky.

The defense also argues that a professional witness isn’t needed to detail the stages of strangulation because there’s nothing there that the average Joe wouldn’t understand, and “the cause of death is not an issue.”

“I literally don’t know what she’s being called to testify about,” Lubinsky said.

In the afternoon, the State said it also wants to show the couple were co-conspirators in the Crawford murder and the cover-up. They pointed to a series of text and Instagram messages and stories which they contend show that, noting Jones and Brantley were in “constant communication” from November 1 through November 8, 2019, checking in on and reassuring each other, and making concealed references to the crime.

“I need them cameras gone, man,” Jones said in one message that week.

Prosecutors say Brantley coached Jones on how to talk to Atlanta Police as the search for Crawford continued.

“Just stick with your answer as before. Don’t look nervous or scared and act as if you’re truly innocent, and you’ll be okay,” he said.

Jones’s defense attorney Cliff Hardwick, IV disagrees.

“It’s inferential, not conclusory,” he said.

DDA Baysah, however, told the judge that taken in totality, a person can understand the context of the messages.

There will be another motions hearing on August 21 about more possible trial evidence, including explicitly allowing those text messages themselves to be heard by the jury.

Earlier this year, the Georgia Supreme Court ruled that jurors will be able to hear jail phone calls of Brantley’s which include incriminating statements about his involvement in the 21-year-old student’s death.

Senior Judge Alford Dempsey asked both sides to submit their proposed orders on these rulings by August 20.

Jones’s trial begins September 3.