Posted on Mon, Oct. 07, 2002
Deputy recalls moment of discovering bodies
Jurors showed no emotion today as they passed a photo of the quadruple homicide crime scene at an east-side soccer complex nearly two years ago.
But Sedgwick County Sheriff's Deputy Matt Lynch's voice cracked as he fought back tears while recalling when he arrived to find the four bodies in the early morning hours of Dec. 15,2000.
It was part of the first day's evidence in the capital murder trial of Jonathan and Reginald Carr, the Dodge City brothers charged with dozens of crimes including capital murder.
The state spent most of the day setting up how police first learned of the homicides from a surviving victim, who lived through a gunshot to the head and who ran naked through a snowy field to summon help.
A defense lawyer's suggestion that another killer could still be free brought objections to start the day.
Val Wachtel told jurors this morning in opening statements about DNA evidence collected at the site of the home invasion belonging to a black man but that did not match defendants Jonathan or Reginald Carr.
A hair, taken from a triplex at Birchwood, comes from "another black man who is still walking the streets," said Wachtel, who represents Reginald Carr.
That brought objections from Sedgwick County District Attorney Nola Foulston. During a hearing outside the presence of the jury before lunch, both Foulston and assistant district attorney Kim Parker asked Judge Paul Clark for sanctions against Wachtel. Parker said Wachtel's comments were based on hearsay and innuendo.
Jay Greeno, Wachtel's co-counsel, said the comments were based on direct evidence gathered by police, not the circumstantial case prosecutors sought to bring against his client.
"My way of looking at it is there's more direct evidence that Mr. Carr didn't do this than we have that he did do it," Greeno said.
Ron Sylvester
