Prosecution testimony got underway Wednesday in the trial of a convicted felon accused of fatally beating his 83-year-old grandmother during an argument at her Menifee home, where he had been taken in after being paroled from state prison.
Andrew Daniel Joseph, 45, is charged with murder, elder abuse and sentence-enhancing allegations of inflicting great bodily injury on a person over 70 years old and misusing a position of trust for the 2020 death of Ethel Mae Hayes.
Riverside County Superior Court Judge Matthew Perantoni seated a jury Tuesday to hear the case, after which the prosecution made its opening statement, and the defense reserved its opening to another day. Jurors returned to the Riverside Hall of Justice on Wednesday, when the prosecution’s first round of witnesses took the stand…