PARIS -- Harry Bodine admitted he shot Joe Stapleton seven times and killed him outside Stapleton's father's house north of Paris in May 2013 but told investigators who questioned him the day after the shooting that he had no involvement in Stapleton's death.
That was one inconsistency that a jury of 10 men and two women heard Monday as testimony began in Bodine's trial in Logan County Circuit Court. He is charged with first-degree murder in Stapleton's May 13, 2013, death and with hindering apprehension.
Investigators in the case and others testified about the finding of Stapleton's bullet-riddled body in the yard outside his father's home and Bodine's role in it.
It was Bodine who called police to the home of Bill Finney, Stapleton's father, at 3913 N. 5th St., about 11:30 a.m. on May 14, 2013.
Logan County sheriff's investigator Jason Massey said Bodine told him he was at Finney's home that morning because he had received a phone call to go to Finney's to feed his dogs because Stapleton never would. When questioned, he couldn't say who had called him about feeding the dogs.
Later, in confessing to killing Stapleton, he told investigators he took the fully-loaded .32-caliber Kel-Tec semi-automatic handgun with him because he knew Stapleton had been drinking. Associate Medical Examiner Frank Peretti testified that Stapleton had a blood alcohol level of 0.16 percent and marijuana in his system at the time of his death. The alcohol intoxication level in Arkansas is 0.08 percent.
Bodine told investigators he and his brother, Brett, 53, who also is charged with first-degree murder and hindering apprehension, drove to Finney's to talk to Stapleton because they didn't like that Stapleton beat his elderly father. Harry Bodine said he stayed in the driver's seat of the car while Brett Bodine went to the door to call Stapleton out.
Bodine told investigators, according to testimony, that Stapleton was enraged and charged him with a brake drum, and Bodine shot at Stapleton until the gun wouldn't fire anymore.
Helen Thias -- who lives with her husband, John, 800 feet from Finney's home -- testified she heard multiple gunshots between 5:15 and 5:30 p.m. on May 13, 2013.
Peretti, who performed the autopsy on Stapleton, said the 33-year-old man who stood 6 feet 2 inches tall and weighed 189 pounds was shot seven times: in the head, the neck, the chest, the back and both arms.
Massey testified that there were scrape marks in the ground where it appeared Stapleton tried to crawl underneath a car next to where his body was found.
He also testified that no brake drum was found at the Finney property.
After Bodine confessed to shooting Stapleton, Massey testified, Bodine led officers to a coal pit north of Paris where he said he and his brother buried the pistol after the shooting. He said officers dug where Bodine pointed, but they found no gun.
Even when several officers dug extensively at the site, no gun was ever uncovered, Massey said.
Testimony continues at 9 a.m. today.
NW News on 09/30/2014