LITTLE ROCK — A North Little Rock man portrayed over the past three weeks as a coldblooded killer was warmly described Thursday as his mother's "lump of sugar."
Friends, teachers and even jailers of Vertis Clay likewise described him as perpetually jovial, helpful, well-behaved and respectful of others. They said he protected others from bullies, bought gifts for children, cooked for friends and family, and was popular at school and in his neighborhood.
The testimony in the sentencing phase of Clay's federal murder trial contrasted sharply with earlier recollections of government witnesses, who say he bound, cut, sodomized and shot to death a Pine Bluff man, and then laughed about it.
Jurors, now hearing evidence to help them decide whether he should die by lethal injection or spend the rest of his life in prison, also heard Thursday from the siblings of his victim - 38-year-old Darryl Johnson of Pine Bluff.
Johnson was the oldest of five siblings who were taken in by relatives after their father stabbed their mother to death in 1982, according to a sister who was just a year younger, and a brother four years his junior.
The sister, Sheree Roberts of Pine Bluff, said the family started out in Kansas. She said her mother fled to Arkansas with the children to escape beatings by her husband, but her husband eventually tracked her down and killed her.
Roberts, who witnessed the attack, told jurors, "Her last words to me were, 'Take care of your brothers and sisters.'''
Those words immediately sprang to mind, Roberts said, when she asked police to break into her older brother's home on July 22, 2003, when she hadn't heard from him for two days, and his tortured body was found.
"I let her down," she said.
Dexter Johnson said his older brother became a father figure after their mother died.
"He was always there for me," Dexter said. "He came to all mygames. ... He was my hero."
According to the descriptions Thursday of the lives of the victim and his killer, the victim persevered through a hardscrabble childhood to become a hero to his younger siblings, while the man convicted Wednesday of killing him grew up in a disciplined, encouraging environment, surrounded by a big, loving, extended family.
Defense attorney Mark Hampton acknowledged the viciousness of the murder, which witnesses said Clay did as a "job" for a drug dealer, Calvin Stovall, who was a partner of Johnson's and who prosecutors say felt Johnson was betraying him.
But Hampton asked jurors to consider "another side of Mr. Clay" and determine if his life is worth saving.
Clay's mother, Oradean Clay, testified that she and Clay's father, Jessie, have been married 44 years. When their five children were young, she said, the couple worked opposite shifts to ensure that they never had to leave the kids with a baby sitter.
Now retired, Oradean Clay said the family, moved years ago into what was then an otherwise all-white neighborhood because, "I wanted the best for my children." She taught them to do their chores and homework, and to "respect the neighborhood."
"Vertis was a lump of sugar," she testified. "He was a good child. He was always mindfuland respectful."
"Basically, Vertis was my grandmother's pet," his cousin, Bobbie Dozier of North Little Rock, told jurors. She described his father as "a quiet man" who worked until he got sick, and his mother as "a hard worker," who has always been "hardheaded" and "strict."
To ensure that young Vertis wouldn't be "running the streets," Clay's parents got him involved with activities at the local Boys Club, Dozier testified.
Robert Williams Jr., 55, who owns a day care near Clay's house, testified that Clay regularly bought goodies for the neighborhood children from the "snow-cone man," and also bought them a basketball goal.
"The neighbors called him Big Teddy Bear," he said.
Two Pulaski County sheriff's deputies who work as jailers described Clay as a positive influence on other inmates, saying he has even defused potentially volatile situations between inmates and jailers.
"He's a model inmate," said deputy Latoya Bone.
Testimony resumes at 8:30 a.m. today.
Arkansas, Pages 14 on 10/26/2007