Tapes implicate Small in husband’s killing

BATH – On the day of her arrest, accused murderer Norma Small told police that the alleged contract killing of her husband was “just one of those things.”

Small, 63, of Gas, Kan., offered that observation during an interview with a Maine State Police detective and a U.S. Navy investigator.

The interview was recorded on videotape and that, along with two recorded discussions with a Navy undercover agent made without her knowledge, were played for a Sagadahoc County Superior Court jury on Wednesday.

Small is charged with arranging the Dec. 16, 1983, murder of her husband, Mervin “Sonny” Grotton, at his Belfast home. Grotton, a Navy petty officer, was shot in his front yard after returning home for the weekend from his Rhode Island duty station.

The prosecution contends that Small used Boyd Smith, 42, of Brooks, a boarder at her home, to find someone to kill her husband.

“I asked him if he would take care of my husband for me, to take him out,” Small told the investigators on May 9, 2001.

During the interview Small also admitted that she had set something in motion that she was unable to control.

“I did make a mistake and I couldn’t correct it,” said Small. “I waited too long to put a stop to it.”

Smith, the prosecution’s star witness, also testified Wednesday. He described Small as a woman who gave him food and shelter during a time of need, all the while demanding that he find someone to kill her husband.

For that job, Smith said, he turned to Joel Fuller. Fuller, now 46, was someone who had the reputation “for being a nut case, a wild man if you would,” he said.

Smith said Small initially wanted him to do the killing and offered him $10,000. Smith said when he told Small he could not go through with it, she demanded that he find someone else.

Smith said he looked up Fuller at a Belfast bar. He said that when he explained the situation to Fuller, Fuller replied that he was interested.

“I gave him Norma’s name and address. I told him I didn’t want any more to do with it. If he met her and decided to do it, I didn’t want any more to do with it.”

Under cross-examination from defense attorney Peter Mason, Smith admitted that he lied to police for years about his participation in the case. He said he lied in the months after the murder, during interviews with undercover agents shortly before his arrest, and to state police on the day he was indicted.

When Mason questioned whether he was still lying, Smith insisted he was not.

Small bowed her head and wiped tears from her eyes during much of Smith’s testimony.

Smith was charged with murder for his part in the case and was found not guilty at a February trial in Penobscot County Superior Court.

Fuller also was charged with murder and is expected to be tried later this year. He is serving two life sentences for a pair of drug-related murders that occurred in Waldo County within two years of the Grotton slaying.

Small’s daughter, Neena Johnson, 40, of Iola, Kan., testified against her mother. Johnson recalled her mother commenting when she was 16 years old that she would be “better off if Dad was dead.” She said the comment “stuck in her mind” up to the day her father was murdered.

State and Navy investigators believe that Grotton’s life insurance and service benefits were the reason Small wanted him dead. Small has been the beneficiary of more than $180,000 in the years since her husband’s murder.

Small’s daughter also testified that she encountered Joel Fuller at her mother’s home on two occasions in the weeks before the murder.

Small also made incriminating statements on the tape with the undercover officer posing as a prison pal of Fuller’s. Agent David Truesdale confronted Small outside the Kansas motel where she worked in February 2001.

The state is expected to wrap up its case early Thursday. It is unknown whether Small will take the stand on her own behalf when the defense presents its side of the case.