Defense rests in ‘Redmond 5′ murder trial; judge plans ...



Defense rests in ‘Redmond 5′ murder trial; judge plans quick verdict

Posted: May 13, 2003

Barney Lerten

With the victim’s son refusing to testify, defense lawyers for `Redmond 5’ murder defendant Justin Link used Adam Thomas’s own words, from song lyrics to letters, in a bid Tuesday to show that the he was preoccupied with death, hated his mother and was the key instigator of the March 26, 2001 beating and shooting death of Barbara Ann Thomas.

But prosecutors also used Thomas’s comments, during a post-arrest police interview, in an effort to show that he, like the others in the group of five teens, said Link was the one who brought up the idea of killing the woman, and pushed them to do so after a brutal beating failed to render her unconscious.

During questioning peppered with prosecution objections – some granted by Deschutes County Circuit Judge Alta Brady, others not – Cindy Spencer introduced several pieces of evidence seized after Thomas, Link and three other teens were caught the day after the killing at the U.S.-Canadian border, trying to flee into Canada in the 52-year-old victims’ car.

The defense rested its case on Tuesday afternoon after nine days of testimony, and without calling defendant Link, now 19, to testify in his own defense – the only youth who didn’t reach a plea deal with prosecutors. Closing arguments are scheduled Wednesday morning, and Brady – in a sign that can’t be too hopeful for the defense – said she plans to issue her ruling Thursday afternoon, no doubt quite familiar with the evidence after two years of pre-trial hearings.

Adam Thomas, 18 at the time of the killing, agreed as part of a plea deal reached with prosecutors last year to testify at future trials in the case. He later tried to withdraw his guilty plea, claiming he had been coerced by his attorneys, whom he dismissed, but eventually relented and let the agreement stand.

However, in a lawyer submitted to Brady by his current attorney, Geoff Gokey, Thomas refused to testify at Link’s trial, citing his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. (Gokey noted outside the courtroom Tuesday that his client has yet to be sentenced – a hearing he is seeking to move elsewhere – and technically, hasn’t been convicted, either.)

Last week, Seth Koch, now 18, testified that Link helped to plan the brutal beating and later said to shoot her and “put her out of her misery.” Koch took a hunting rifle from the hands of Adam Thomas, who has said he couldn’t pull the trigger. The two other teens, Ashley Summers (then 15) and Lucretia Karle (then 16), also have testified about their and Link’s role in planning the attack on Barbara Thomas when she returned home, though all agree that Link went outside and was not in the house when the killing occurred.

At one point Tuesday morning, Spencer responded to an objection by Deputy District Attorney Darryl Nakahira by saying she was trying to show Adam Thomas’s “preoccupation with death, violence, murder, and … who had primary motivation in this case.”

Link’s other defense lawyer, Thomas Howes, made a motion for acquittal on all charges Tuesday afternoon, arguing that the state had failed to show that Link was guilty of aggravated murder or conspiracy to commit aggravated murder, which comprise 10 of the 22 counts against him. Brady took the motion under advisement, pending her ruling in the case.

“Even in the light most favorable to the state, the standard has not been met” for guilty verdicts, Howes said, pointing to a state statute defining aggravated murder as someone who “personally and intimately committed the homicide” in question.

“All of the evidence, including the state’s witnesses, (show) the defendant didn’t cause Barbara Thomas’s death,” the defense lawyer said. “Seth Koch, at some point, decided to shoot Barbara Thomas. There was no plan to shoot her. .. According to Lucretia Karle, he left the house before the final planning.”

“When Justin Link left the house, all testified he left with words to the effect of, `I don’t want any part of this,’” Howes said, arguing, “The conspiracy – if there was one – ended when he went outside.” The defense lawyer said Link did not act as a lookout or play any particular role, outside the house, nor did he alert those inside that the woman had returned home.

Howes also argued that state law says someone can’t be convicted of conspiracy on the basis of co-defendants’ testimony, unless there’s other, corroborating evidence.

Deputy District Attorney Kandy Gies said she found only one, 1990 ruling to rely on as case law on the issue, but that was a case in which the defendant was not involved in planning the murder. “Here, I think the evidence is clear that defendant Link … initiated the murder of Barbara Thomas. Lucretia Karle clearly heard defendant Link state, `Why isn’t she dead yet? Get the gun. Shoot her.’”

“I think it’s clear that defendant Justin Link directed Seth Koch to pull the trigger,” Gies said.

Detective called to rebut recent Thomas statements

The prosecution called Bend police Det. Sharon Sweet as a final, rebuttal witness Tuesday afternoon, responding to a letter Adam Thomas wrote to defendant Link in January, but which prosecutors only learned of in recent days, whe it was introduced as Defense Exhibit No. 101.

In the letter, Thomas said Link “didn’t do anything,” and that he would try to help his friend “any way I can,” attorneys said. “I should be blaming and hating myself,” the now-20-year-old was quoted as saying in the letter.

In her rebuttal testimony, Sweet read sections of the transcript from an 87-minute, early-morning interview she and a fellow detective conducted with Adam Thomas on the early morning of March 28, 2001, at the Whatcom County, Wash., Sheriff’s Office.

“I think Justin was the first person who said, “We should kill your mom and steal her car – then nobody would know about it,’” Sweet quoted Thomas as saying. Thomas told police that Link repeatedly called his mother “a bitch” for yelling at her son in front of his friends and other signs of disrespect.

“I’m like, `I don’t think we should kill my mom – I don’t think that’s a good idea,’” the detective quoted Thomas as telling Link.

“Justin kept saying he was going to shoot her. … I’m like, `Dude, just shut up, I don’t want to hear that kind of crap,’” the transcript continued. Thomas said he told Link, “I really don’t feel like killing my mom, `cause that’s just dumb.” And Thomas said he believed Link came up with the idea for electrocuting his mother in the bathtub.

After Thomas and Koch beat Barbara Thomas over the head with wine bottles, “I heard Justin say, `You’ve gotta finish her `cause she’s in too much pain,’” he told detectives, quoting Link as telling Koch: “You have to shoot her. Don’t wuss out on me. I’m your brother. I’ll love you, even after you do this.”

“He (Link) just kept bringing up the idea,” the victim’s son told police after their arrest. “It seemed like I was forced,” though not under personal threat to himself.

Friends, detectives called to testify by defense

Earlier Tuesday, a friend of Link’s, Mandi King, who moved to Portland a year before the killing, testified, “Adam was very distant to me. … He wouldn’t look me in the eye.”

“Who seemed to be the leader of the two?” Spencer asked. “Adam,” King replied.

King said Link was living with his parents in a mobile home and described his parents as “very good people, hard-working people.” She said Justin had a job and was earning his own money – and also answered no, when asked if she would lie for him.

Alana Borden formerly Brichard) then took the stand and told of being Adam Thomas’s girlfriend in late 2000 and early 2001, and since has married. She said Link treated his mother “poorly. His mom did everything for him – give him money, buy him a car.”

Borden said Thomas seemed to have a preoccupation with death. “I found pictures of him acting like he was cutting himself. I also read his poems,” which she described as “depressing and violent.”

Thomas had a Web site about a fictitious “death metal” rock band, Bonesaw, with song titles such as “Into the Mind of a Killer” and “Deadly Screams.” Borden said she “glanced” at it, but Nakahira objected when Spencer asked Borden, “Did he ever say anything to you about killing anybody?” and she replied, “No.”

Bend police Lt. Jerry Stone, the next defense witness, was asked about his interview the day after the killing with Rod Jones, Barbara Thomas’s brother, who said she had been “deadly afraid” of her son. But again, Nakahira objected, saying Spencer didn’t lay “a complete foundation” for the testimony – and Brady agreed.

Deschutes County sheriff’s Det. Merlin Toney was called by the defense, having testified earlier as a prosecution witness. Spencer had him show on a diagram where he and a fellow officer inspected the area along the fence line of the Thomas home on the Old Bend-Redmond Highway. He looked for footprints, cigarette butts or other evidence, and found none.

Spencer had Toney identify various pieces of evidence, such as a cell phone found in a second search of the victim’s Honda. One element under scrutiny was whether the defense would stipulate to the proper “chain of control” of the evidence – and Spencer noted that at one point last year, the evidence tag for the phone was labeled “returned to owner,” although it also indicated it was given to another detective.

One piece of telling evidence was Adam Thomas’s black wallet, with no cash but the usual things inside – a Redmond High student body card, for example, and a blood donor card – but also with a ticket stub for the movie “Hannibal.” Other items found in the car included his mother’s wedding ring.

Spencer also introduced a file box of papers found in the closet of the teen’s bedroom, and a Nike shopping bag full of notebooks and other items, found in the trash outside. The defense lawyer noted the names of fictional song lyrics found in the file folders: “The Brutal Truth,” and “A Life in Agony – Execution if Innocents,”

But since Toney hadn’t seen everything in the box or bag, the judge agreed to have him review the items and see what could be entered as evidence. Nakahira asked Toney if he’d seen the movie “Hannibal.” “I’ve read the book,” the detective replied. “Did you like the book?” the prosecutor asked later. “I’ve been through serial (killer) training – I found it pretty interesting, yes.”

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