Pulaski County jury acquits vet in slaying of pal

Proof lacking in NLR case, Alabamian’s attorney argued

Even though his DNA was on the purported murder weapon, the dead man's bloody shoes were in his pickup and one of his own shoes was wedged under the victim's body, an Alabama man who said he never could have killed his friend was acquitted by a Pulaski County jury this week.

ADVERTISEMENT

More headlines

Gary Anthony Smith alternately wept, scoffed and bristled at the idea that he could have killed Joseph Tillman Buchanan when he testified Wednesday night, telling jurors about the last time he had seen the 55-year-old North Little Rock man alive.

Buchanan's decomposing body was found six days later, Feb. 12, in his Jefferson Manor apartment.

Both men were veterans with substance-abuse problems when they first met in 2013 in a treatment program sponsored by a veterans hospital, Smith said.

Smith told jurors he was back in North Little Rock in February to pick up some belongings and had planned to spend the weekend with Buchanan before returning to his home in Mobile.

But that stay was suddenly cut down to a single day, the 60-year-old Navy veteran said.

A mysterious attack after a day of drinking together by the men forced him to flee the residence, Smith told jurors.

Whatever hit him knocked him out, broke his nose, blackened his eyes and inflicted a cut on his forehead that bled profusely, he testified.

Smith said he never saw what hit him, but had reluctantly come to the conclusion that it must have been Buchanan, who was the only other person in the home with him.

Buchanan was killed by an assailant who stabbed him five times in the throat and neck, inflicting two serious wounds. One was a deep cut in his windpipe just below the voice box, the most serious was the slicing in two of a neck artery.

That injury would have rendered him unconscious in at most two minutes and would have been fatal on its own, according to medical testimony.

Detectives said Smith was the last man they knew to have been in Buchanan's John Ashley Drive apartment.

Buchanan's last phone call was made about 30 minutes before Smith left, prosecutors said.

Smith's departure was recorded on security cameras at the apartment complex.

Calling for his client's acquittal, attorney Willard Proctor told jurors that none of the evidence against Smith mattered because prosecutors had failed to prove two key parts of their all-circumstantial case.

They had no proof that Smith deliberately had killed Buchanan or even sufficient evidence to show when the man was killed, he said.

"Even the expert can't tell you the date he died," Proctor said.

He reminded jurors that there had been testimony about Buchanan visiting with a friend on the day after he was supposed to have been killed.

And it made no sense for Smith to kill Buchanan, then leave his own clothes and shoes behind, with the kitchen knife spotted with Buchanan's blood in the kitchen sink, Proctor told jurors.

Smith's DNA was on the knife handle, but Proctor disputed that prosecutors could prove it was the murder weapon.

Who would leave all of that evidence behind, Proctor asked.

"Gary has to be the stupidest person in the world if he did this," he said. "It just baffles common sense that he would do that and try to get away with it."

His client was innocent, Proctor said, calling the admitted alcoholic's testimony "soul-baring."

"He's not perfect, but he's not a killer," the attorney said in his closing arguments. "He didn't kill his friend."

It took almost six hours Wednesday night for the seven women and five men to agree and acquit Smith after a three-day trial before Circuit Judge Mary McGowan.

In a strategic move, Smith had asked for an all-or-nothing verdict from the jury. He declined the opportunity to allow jurors to consider lesser charges, such as second-degree murder or manslaughter, offenses that don't require prosecutors to prove he had purposely killed Buchanan.

In her closing argument, senior deputy prosecutor Leigh Patterson said only one person could have killed Buchanan -- the last man to leave the apartment.

Both she and fellow prosecutor Vicky Ewenike told jurors that Smith's intent could be judged by the wounds Buchanan suffered.

"They may have been friends but things turned really ugly on that night," Patterson said. "Gary Smith took a knife and plunged it five times into the neck of Joe Buchanan, and no one heard or saw Joe Buchanan again."

The prosecutor called jurors' attention to the smudge of Smith's blood found next to the kitchen. If Smith had been attacked in the apartment like he described, why wasn't his blood found where he said he'd been struck, she asked jurors.

Instead, it was across the room, close to where police found the knife in the kitchen sink, she said.

She said the testimony of three witnesses -- Buchanan's friends Alvin Jerome Polk and Bobby Redmon plus neighbor Sonia Marie Turner -- combined with the surveillance video proved Smith had been the last person to leave Buchanan's apartment until his body was found.

"No one goes in or out of that door after the defendant drives away," she said. "Every one of those facts points to his guilt."

Metro on 12/03/2016

Upcoming Events