Which witnesses testified for the defense at Travis Collins’ prior trials or proceedings, and what did they say?

1. The Harrisburg trial: defense called no witnesses; strategy centered on impeachment and lack of intent

Reporting on the August 2025 Harrisburg trial makes clear that Collins’ defense did not present any witnesses when the four‑day murder trial concluded—Defense counsel Jessica Bush conceded in opening that she would not dispute that Collins killed Ashley Sarazen but argued he lacked the intent or malice required for first‑degree murder; nevertheless, no defense witnesses took the stand during the defense case ^{[1] [2]}. Instead, defense work was visible in courtroom questioning of prosecution witnesses and in targeted challenges such as asking why investigators did not seize and test the hotel bed sheets for substances other than Sarazen’s blood—an effort to raise alternative explanations or gaps in the investigative record rather than to present affirmative exculpatory testimony ^[5].

2. What defense questioning produced on the record: forensics and gaps emphasized

During prosecution testimony, the defense elicited forensic observations—Harrisburg forensics investigator Brandon Shetterly described photographing irritated skin and scratches on Collins and documented extensive injuries on Sarazen, while defense counsel pressed on investigative choices such as not testing bedding, implicitly suggesting there were unexamined avenues that could bear on cause or sequence of events ^[5]. Those lines of questioning were conducted while prosecution witnesses were on the stand; they do not constitute defense‑sponsored witnesses but do show the defense’s tactic of undermining completeness and suggesting alternative narratives through cross‑examination ^[5].

3. Other court opinions and trials referencing “Travis Collins”: witnesses or the defendant testified in unrelated matters

The reporting and case law supplied include other proceedings involving people named Travis Collins in different jurisdictions where defense testimony or alibi witnesses were part of the record: a federal appellate opinion recounts defendants who “presented an alibi defense” and an alibi witness was questioned at trial in a 1998 federal case involving a Travis Collins as a defendant ^[3], and a Georgia Court of Appeals decision notes a Collins who testified in his own defense in a separate criminal case involving a high‑speed chase ^[4]. Those sources document the kinds of defense testimony that can appear in criminal trials, but the documents do not tie those trials to the Pennsylvania defendant charged in the Harrisburg Hilton homicide; reporters did not assert they were the same individual ^{[3] [4]}.

4. Limits of the record and how to interpret “prior trials or proceedings” here

The single, contemporaneous news record specific to the Harrisburg prosecution answers the narrow question: Collins’ defense produced no witnesses at that trial ^[1]. The other supplied sources show examples of defense witnesses or testimony in unrelated cases that share the same name but cannot be used to say this Travis Collins had the same prior defense witnesses without additional, corroborating court records or reporting connecting those cases to him ^{[3] [4]}. Where reporting is silent, it is not possible to assert whether earlier pretrial hearings, suppression hearings, or other proceedings in Dauphin County included defense witnesses for this defendant unless those records are located and produced.