Navy video links man to Belfast killing Undercover officers lured information from Smith

BANGOR – Jurors in the Boyd Smith murder trial Tuesday saw a video secretly taped in a Camden cemetery in which he admitted connecting the victim’s widow to the man she allegedly hired to kill her husband.

Smith, 41, of Brooks is accused of being the middleman in the 1983 murder for hire of career Navy officer Mervin “Sonny” Grotton. The murder took place outside Grotton’s Belfast home on a cold December night.

Evidence produced at the trial revealed that the killer shot Grotton while hiding behind a pile of cordwood, then approached the fallen man and fired the fatal bullet into his face at close range.

The state contends that Smith linked Grotton’s wife, Norma Small, 61, of Iola, Kan., with Joel Fuller, 45, then of Searsmont, the man they believe was the hidden assailant.

The motive for the killing was greed, according to prosecutor Andrew Benson. Benson said Small offered $10,000 for her husband’s death. Although it appears that neither Smith nor Fuller ever received any money, over the years Small collected more than $158,000 in survivor benefits.

Smith, Small and Fuller were indicted for the 18-year-old crime last year. Smith is the first to stand trial.

Small is scheduled to be tried in June and Fuller in the fall. Small is incarcerated in Maine and Fuller is out of state, serving concurrent life sentences for a pair of drug-related murders that took place in the years immediately after the Grotton killing.

The surveillance tape was recorded last April while Smith discussed his involvement in the crime with U.S. Navy undercover officers posing as career criminals.

The conversation was recorded as Smith shared lunch with officers David “Tony” Truesdale and Kenneth “Bubba” Mennick at a Camden cemetery.

As the men talked, Smith admitted putting Small in contact with Fuller and that Small had pressured him for months to help her kill her husband.

“Norma wanted her husband gone. She was always rah-rah-rahing about it. … She asked me several times. … I thought about it, told her no way,” Smith said. “I didn’t make any agreement with Joel. I put him in contact with her and they did their own thing.”

Defense attorney Eric Morse has acknowledged that his client put Fuller in touch with Small months before the killing. The defense contends that Smith had no actual knowledge of any murder plans or any idea that one would ever take place.

Under cross-examination by Morse, Truesdale admitted he and his partner lied outright to Smith in an attempt to lure him into making incriminating statements. He said they intentionally played the role of ex-convict friends of Fuller to gain Smith’s confidence.

“That was the pretext of why we were there,” testified Truesdale.

The jury sat transfixed during much of Tuesday’s testimony as prosecutor Benson called 14 witnesses to the stand to buttress the state’s version of the crime. The witnesses ranged from police officers who worked on the case over the years to an informant, Grotton’s two daughters, and friends of Norma Small.

Although the crime had gone unsolved for years, the case gained momentum when Maine State Police Detective Dean Jackson began interviewing some of the original witnesses three years ago. Jackson was aided by information obtained from Larry Phillips, 44, of Waterville that pointed to Fuller.

Phillips, who described Fuller as his “best friend,” testified that the two were “out drinking” sometime after the murder and that when they drove past a brook in Searsmont, Fuller mentioned he had disposed of a rifle there.

Fuller then “began telling stories,” recalled Phillips. “He told me he waited behind a woodpile for some guy to come home and he shot him in the back,” Phillips testified. “He said the guy was pleading for his life and he shot him again.”

Based on information gathered by Jackson, authorities began plotting an undercover scenario with Navy investigators in hopes of cracking the case. Truesdale testified that he initially approached Small last February and she in turn led him to Smith.

“He admitted that Norma had come to him and asked him to kill Sonny Grotton,” said Truesdale.

Grotton’s two daughters, Rosalyn Grotton and Nena Stevens, testified that each had dated Smith before the murder. Rosalyn Grotton said Smith moved into her mother’s house with her when they became involved and remained there when they later broke up. She described Smith as “part of the family.”

Nena Stevens testified that her mother and Smith grew very close over the years and that “she treated him like a son.”

Though Morse has suggested that Small and Fuller were lovers, Stevens was the first witness to place the two together. Stevens testified that she knew who Fuller was and recalled seeing him at her mother’s home three weeks before her father was killed.

She also testified that her parents were not “getting along too well” and “avoided each other” during that period of their lives. Stevens said she once heard her mother say she wanted her father killed.

Vicki Harriman, a close friend of Small, testified that Small told her she would be “better off financially” if her husband was out of the way. Harriman said she was at the Grotton house the Sunday before the murder and saw Grotton give his wife a kiss and a hug before leaving.

“That’s the last time that son of a bitch will ever kiss me and touch me,” Harriman recalled Small saying. Five days later, Sonny Grotton was shot dead.

Testimony resumes today.