One says he’s telling truth; other says he’s lying to protect himself
By Kathleen Brady Shea, Managing Editor, The Times
Aaron Turner, 16, was remembered by his grieving family on Tuesday, the fourth anniversary of his disappearance, which eventually led to the death-penalty murder trial that began today.
In his opening statement to the jury, Chief Deputy District Attorney Patrick Carmody likened the evidence-collecting in the slaying of a Coatesville teen to a line from Shakespeare’s “Hamlet:” “Murder, though it has no tongue, will speak ….”
Defense attorney Evan Kelly countered that authorities were overzealous in their efforts to pin the blame on Laquanta Chapman, 33, for the death of 16-year-old Aaron Turner As a result, they relied on a witness reminiscent of today’s political candidates, “promising the sun, the moon, and the stars:” anything to get elected, Kelly said.
For the next two weeks, a jury of seven men and five women will hear testimony in the case against Chapman, who faces the threat of the death penalty if he is convicted of first-degree murder.
Carmody said that while many county residents were preoccupied recently with the impact of Hurricane Sandy, Turner’s family was dealing with the repercussions of their loved one’s death. “Tuesday was the fourth anniversary of the day 16-year-old Aaron Turner disappeared from the face of this earth,” Carmody said.
He said the teen, the oldest of five children, had been ordered to perform community service after a drug arrest and was eager to put his “big mistake” behind him. So when he failed to show up at the community center after school on Oct. 30, 2008, his family immediately knew something was wrong. A break in the case finally occurred Nov. 15, Carmody said, when Chapman, who lived across Chester Avenue from Turner, was targeted in a drug raid.
Carmody said police executing a search warrant found “a house of crime” that included stolen guns, machetes, drugs, drug-selling paraphernalia, blood-stained clothing, and trash bags with mutilated pitbull remains. Two men were inside the residence at the time, Carmody said: Chapman, who was wearing body armor, and his cousin, Bryan Byrd, 23, of Newark, N.J.
In interviews, Carmody said that although Chapman changed his story regarding what police found, he consistently insisted Turner had never been inside his house, a statement at odds with the DNA evidence detectives recovered.
“The bottom line here is that Laquanta Chapman tried to make Aaron Turner disappear, but he didn’t” succeed, Carmody said, referencing the blood and tissue samples that prompted a medical examiner to conclude that Turner was murdered even though the body was never recovered.
Kelly said the jury will not have to deliberate about the charges related to the guns, the drugs, and the animal abuse. “You can find him guilty of that,” Kelly said of each offense, adding that Chapman used pitbulls for dog-fighting.
But Kelly said police were too quick to believe Bryd’s second account of what happened, which included a description of the shooting by Chapman, who then dismembered the body, a task that required two chainsaws after the first one broke. “They went into the basement and found a crime scene,” said Kelly of investigators. “They don’t know what happened in the basement.”
Byrd, who pleaded guilty in November 2011 to third-degree murder, conspiracy, abuse of a corpse, and related offenses, will testify against Chapman and is awaiting sentencing. Carmody said he could receive up to 97 years in prison, but Kelly suggested Byrd would receive consideration for his cooperation.
For the first time, Carmody identified a third person investigators said was in the home when the murder occurred: Michael Purnell. Carmody said he’s “not charged here – yet.”
Kelly said Byrd fingered Purnell as the “second shooter,” but said investigators only interviewed him for 17 minutes before releasing him. “They don’t want to know what he had to say,” Kelly said.
Carmody said Chapman changed his account of what occurred to explain away the blood, adding details about going upstairs and grabbing two chain-saws – a Stihl and a Poulan – to dismember a second dog. The description matched what Byrd told police Chapman did to Turner, Carmody said. “There’s no second dog,” he added.
