An 19-year-old murder suspect lost a bid Thursday to keep jurors from hearing a recording of him telling Little Rock detectives that, although his fingerprints might be on the murder weapon, another man was the killer.
Michael Mitchell is charged with first-degree murder and first-degree battery in the shootings that killed Troy Lee Holmes, 37, and wounded his stepdaughter, Asia Lacy, 14, in the Holmes family's Stevenson Drive house two days after Christmas 2014.
Police said there was a fight at the residence between Roderick Gulley, a cousin of Holmes' wife, and Tatiana Curry, the mother of Gulley's daughter.
Holmes wasn't home, but returned when he was called by a girl at the house who was concerned about the two men who had accompanied Curry.
Holmes was shot when he told the men to leave his property while Curry "snatched" the baby from a girl who was holding the child, according to police reports.
Pulaski County Circuit Judge Barry Sims ruled Thursday that detectives had done nothing wrong in recording Mitchell when he contacted them through CrimeStoppers.
The judge rejected Mitchell's claims that he had been illegally coerced into speaking with detectives by police promises of getting his $500,000 bail reduced. He is scheduled to stand trial next month.
Mitchell briefly took the witness stand Thursday to complain that detectives told him that his lawyer would be at the interview and promised that they would get his bail lowered. Those promises were made before the officers started recording their questioning of him, Mitchell said.
But on cross-examination by senior deputy prosecutor Melanie Martin, Mitchell acknowledged that he had initiated contact with the detectives, had signed a waiver acknowledging his rights to remain silent and have an attorney present, and, when asked during the recorded interview whether he had been promised anything, he told the officers no.
Mitchell complained that the questioning had been moving too quickly for him to realize what he was saying when he told them that.
"At the time, they was taking me too fast," Mitchell told the judge.
Questioned by his attorney, Bill Luppen, Mitchell testified that he contacted detective Chuck Ray from his jail cell using the CrimeStoppers tip program in May 2015 because his previous lawyer had told him that "everything points to me."
Mitchell said he told Ray and detective Tommy Hudson that "I'll let them know everything if they drop my bond and let me get home to my family."
Both detectives said they hadn't promised Mitchell anything to get him to cooperate.
"He wanted to tell the truth so he could get his bond lowered so he could get out of jail," Ray told the judge.
Hudson testified he emphasizes to suspects that he has no control over the bail procedure.
In the 15-minute interview that was played in court, Mitchell told the officers he was "not the shooter at all. I was in the car the whole time."
Mitchell told the officers that the shooter is Shaheed Williams, another man questioned that night. Williams is also a prosecution witness, court files show.
Mitchell said he saw Williams pull a gun and shoot the man who had just confronted him. Williams dropped the gun after the shooting, he told the detectives. Mitchell said he picked it up and put it in his pocket.
He and Williams left the Holmes residence and went to Williams' house, where he tried to return the gun to Williams, who didn't want it, Mitchell said in the interview.
Each of them wiped off the weapon, and Williams put it into a bag and then into a toilet in the house, Mitchell said.
On the recording, the detectives, who did find the gun in the toilet, sound skeptical, questioning Mitchell why he didn't come forward sooner after seeing a man killed.
Mitchell said he didn't know the man had been killed.
Metro on 05/20/2016