State, defense rest in Ellsworth murder trial

ELLSWORTH – Closing arguments are all that stand between accused murderer John J. Turner and a jury of seven men and five women who will decide his innocence or guilt.

After calling only one witness to the stand on Tuesday – a Maine State Police detective who already had testified on the state’s behalf – Turner’s attorney, Jeffrey Toothaker, rested his case.

Assistant Attorney General Andrew Benson had rested earlier that afternoon, wrapping up his case by calling three crime lab specialists to testify on blood spatter and DNA associated with the crime scene.

Toothaker’s defense strategy seemed to manifest during his cross-examination of many of the state’s witnesses. His goal was to offer the possibility that someone else besides Turner and the man he is accused of killing – 27-year-old Tad Howard – was at the murder scene, and that the third person could have been responsible.

Turner, 35, of Bangor is on trial in Hancock County Superior Court for the July 2007 slaying of Howard, originally of Ellsworth. The young man’s body was found riddled with gunshot wounds in a ditch off a dirt road in Amherst, and the killing appears to have been motivated by drug debts.

The trial will resume this morning with closing arguments and jury instructions from Justice Kevin Cuddy, who is presiding over his first murder trial. The jury could return its decision as early as this afternoon. If convicted, Turner could face 25 years to life in prison.

Tuesday’s morning session featured compelling testimony about the complex web of pills, money and intimidation associated with the drug trade that both Turner and Howard were caught up in last summer.

Benson began by calling Joel Pelletier, then Linda Pelletier to the stand. The couple had gone out to dinner in Aurora on Sunday, July 8 – the night Howard was killed – and stopped to view a new subdivision off Route 9, the murder scene, coincidentally.

Both Pelletiers testified that they drove down the subdivision road to view a lot. and on their way out, saw a blue mini-van parked on the side of the road. Both said they saw only two people, which contradicted Toothaker’s assertion that a third person was at the murder scene. Toothaker had offered the notion Monday that DNA found on cigarette butts found at the scene belonged to an unidentified female.

The most substantial testimony on Tuesday morning came from Todd Fullerton, 33, of Bangor, who bought prescription drugs from Turner for several months before Howard’s death.

Fullerton described his own lengthy battle with drug addiction – OxyContin specifically – and how it led to a life of petty crime. He testified that Turner was his main drug supplier in the spring and early summer of 2007 and he even met Howard – presumably Turner’s drug supplier – on one occasion before the killing. Fullerton told the court that Turner had talked about robbing Howard, who reportedly had been moving large quantities of illegal prescriptions, of his stash of drugs and money. Turner even asked Fullerton about borrowing a gun, which he said he wanted for intimidation to collect a drug debt, though he didn’t identify Howard in that conversation.

During cross-examination, Toothaker was aggressive in trying to discredit Fullerton’s testimony by focusing on his drug-addled past.

The trial’s afternoon session featured more technical description of evidence found at the scene, specifically gunshot materials and blood spatters.

Kimberly Stevens, a firearms identification specialist with the Maine State Police crime lab in Augusta, testified that seven rounds were fired the night of July 8 in Amherst. Five waddings, or remains from a gunshot shell, were found at the scene, and two more were found lodged in Howard’s body. All seven were consistent and presumably from the same firearm, although a murder weapon was never located, as Toothaker pointed out. He also asked Stevens if it was possible for two separate guns to fire the same type of shells and she replied that it was.

Brandi Caron, a forensic chemist with the Maine State Police crime lab in Augusta who processed many pieces of physical evidence associated with Howard’s murder, was called next.

Her testimony focused on blood spatter and her graphic description of Howard’s body and his fatal wounds appeared to be too much for the deceased man’s mother, who left the courtroom.

Caron described small bloodstains on shoes that were seized from Turner after Howard’s death and also from the van Turner was driving on July 8. Samples taken from both the shoes and the van matched the DNA of Howard.

Toothaker, on his cross-examination, wondered why more blood or biological material from Howard didn’t end up on Turner, if his client was the killer.

“Wouldn’t that blood go everywhere?” he asked.

“Not necessarily,” Caron replied.

Toothaker also pointed out that no blood was found on the soles of Turner’s shoes, which he thought was odd, and that no blood or DNA was found on any of Turner’s clothing.

The defense attorney further reminded jurors that state police detectives seemed to spend a lot of time investigating a cigarette butt found at the scene that contained female DNA. Why would they do that, Toothaker said, if they didn’t think someone else was there?

Benson essentially dismissed Toothaker’s allegations of a third person and said that cigarette butt was not necessarily connected to the murder scene.