Posted: Wednesday, October 26, 2011 12:00 pm | Updated: 10:29 am, Wed Oct 26, 2011.
By SALLY YORK, Argus-Press Staff Writer | 0 comments
CORUNNA — The prosecution in the murder trial for Donald Ray Porter turned its attention Tuesday to what happened after police were summoned to the home of Lauri Jo Pilot, 50, who was killed by a single shot to her lower chest Dec. 15, 2010.
The second day in the murder trial in 35th Circuit Court of Pilot’s longtime boyfriend and housemate, Porter, 47, featured testimony by Shiawassee Sheriff’s Office personnel, paramedics and a Shiawassee County medical examiner investigator — all of whom arrived at the scene within hours of Pilot’s death.
Prosecutors built on a chronology of events begun Thursday, when the trial — presided over by Judge Gerald D. Lostracco — kicked off with Pilot and Porter’s friends, a neighbor, Pilot’s coworker and the victim’s father, Loyd Horn, describing the couple’s rocky relationship and the hours leading up to the shooting of Pilot with a single-shot, 20-gauge shotgun.
Porter, charged with open murder and felony firearm, claims the fatal shooting was a suicide or an accident. He faces up to life in prison if convicted. The trial was set to resume this morning.
Shiawassee County Sheriff’s Deputy Paul Richardson, the first witness Tuesday, said he and Deputy Ryan Hall were the first to arrive at Pilot’s home, with Sgt. Douglas Chapman and Deputy Nadine Crowl arriving moments later.
Standing in the doorway, Porter told the officers his “girlfriend” had “killed herself” and was dead in the couple’s bedroom, Richardson said.
Asked about Porter’s demeanor by Daniel Nees, co-prosecutor on the case with Deana Finnegan, Richardson said: “He appeared calm. He did not appear upset. He was not crying. He seemed somewhat intoxicated.”
Porter, who appeared impassive in the courtroom Thursday and at his preliminary examination last February, made his first public display of emotion Tuesday when a photograph of Pilot’s body was shown in the courtroom. He lowered his head and shielded his eyes, dabbing them with a tissue.
Richardson said he observed several “red flags” pointing in a direction other than suicide. One was a lack of blood spatter. Another was that the gun lay next to Pilot’s body on the bed, when — given the recoil of a shotgun — he would have expected it to have wound up “toward the foot of the bed.” A broken plate on the living room floor and hamburger meat on Porter’s recliner in the same room indicated a “domestic dispute” to Richardson.
The deputy testified Porter was wearing jeans, a dark shirt and black jacket. Hall, Chapman and Crowl also testified Porter was wearing dark clothing when they arrived at the house. Earlier on the evening of the shooting, Porter was wearing coveralls, according to testimony by Porter’s nephew Dave Adams and his fiancee, Sherry Ebright.
Hall testified he asked Porter if anyone had disturbed the scene in the bedroom. Porter replied he “moved the gun, picked (Pilot) up and gave her a hug and then replaced the gun where he had found it,” Hall said.
While Hall and Richardson were in the bedroom, Crowl testified she stayed in the living room with Chapman and Porter. She asked Porter if he had heard shots and he said no. She asked him where he had been in the couple’s home — a small ranch — and he told her he was watching “Survivor” on TV in the living room. She asked if he’d fallen asleep and he said no.
When Crowl asked Porter about the broken plate and hamburger on the chair, she said he responded, “Lauri threw the plate at me. It happens all the time.”
If he didn’t hear the gun go off, Crowl asked, then how did he discover Pilot was shot? “He stated he was going to bed and saw she had shot herself,” Crowl testified.
Chapman said in other suicides by gun he has investigated, spots of blood, fabric or human tissue are “normally” found on the barrel, but “I did not see any” on the shotgun next to Pilot. He said he observed signs Pilot had been dead for some time: redness or “lividity” at the tip of her fingers and palms, and “she was cold to the touch.”
Photographs of Pilot’s body, projected on a screen in the courtroom, showed the woman lying on her back in her bed wearing blue jeans and a dark blue sweatshirt, her eyes and mouth partially open and head tilted to the left, a shotgun laying on the bed parallel to her body.
Paramedics Ryan Acre and John Rose, from Shiawassee Mobile Medical Response, testified that when they arrived at the house shortly after midnight, Pilot had no pulse and was cold to the touch. Pilot’s body was already undergoing rigor mortis, a stiffening process that generally starts two to four hours after death. Adams had earlier testified he called 911 at about 11 p.m.
Defense attorney Don Cataldo, assisting Porter’s court-appointed lawyer, Michelle Shannon, questioned why deputies did not check Porter’s hands for gun powder or his chest for red marks consistent with firing a gun. He also questioned why deputies did not perform sobriety tests that are considered more reliable than the preliminary breath test given to Porter as he sat in the back seat of a squad car.
Out of the presence of the jury, Cataldo also moved for a mistrial on the basis that prosecutors in opening statements and through witness testimony had established .203 as Porter’s alcohol level, thereby precluding the defense from arguing it was even higher. He said the results of a preliminary breath test were not admissible.
Prosecutors responded that the shooting was not a drunken driving case, which would require a blood test. Lostracco ruled against the defense motion, saying “if it is an error” it could be cured through jury instruction.
Several deputies testified they believed Porter was intoxicated, citing his “glassy,” “bloodshot” eyes and slightly slurred speech. But they said he was able to respond to questions coherently. Cataldo elicited testimony that Porter might have had watery, red eyes from crying, not drinking.
Deputy Matthew Davis, an evidence technician who took photographs throughout the house, testified to finding a hamburger dinner on the patio. He said he also saw a cellphone on the recliner next to Porter’s recliner, raising a question in his mind as to why Porter didn’t make the call to 911 himself, instead of walking a quarter mile to the home of his nephew, who called the police.
Davis discovered a spent shell casing at the foot of Pilot’s bed, the only one found in the home. He said it suggested the shooting was not a suicide.
“Once they commit suicide, they can’t eject the casing on the ground,” the deputy said.
Registered nurse Kathleen Wahl, a medical examiner investigator for Shiawassee County, said she arrived at about 8:15 a.m. Dec. 16. She measured the temperature of the house at 68.7 degrees. She and a forensic pathologist tagged the body. Turning it over, they saw no exit wound. Pilot’s body was taken to Sparrow Hospital in Lansing at 10:30 a.m. for an autopsy, Wahl said.
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