Evidence of Murder (19 page)

The trial of John Steven Huggins neared in the new year of 1998, and the incarcerated suspect still did not have a defense lawyer. Months previous, the court appointed a well-known attorney, Cheney Mason, to represent Huggins, but on Monday, January 12, 1998, in a dispute over legal fees with the county, Mason withdrew from the case.

In his argument over payment, Mason contended that the $50-per-hour rate that the county was paying defense lawyers in death penalty cases like Huggins’s was ridiculous.

Judge Belvin Perry, Orange County’s chief circuit judge, considered Mason’s harsh criticism and ordered the fee paid to attorneys defending the accused in capital cases to be increased to $125 per hour.

Attorney Mason said that the fee was still inadequate.

Judge Perry stated that he made a study of other judicial circuits and the rates of other government agencies, which led him to conclude that $125 per hour was just and proper.

Several lawyers who were asked to take on the Huggins case refused because they believed that the trial was expected to begin as early as late February. The general feeling of the attorneys was that the time was too short to provide an adequate defense for the accused client.

Eventually a defense team composed of Bob Wesley and Tyrone King stepped forward and took the case.

Bob Wesley, a heavyset 6’6” attorney, and Tyrone King, a very bright young lawyer working with him, were disturbed that no one would represent Huggins. When asked why he and King took on this case, Wesley answered, “It looked like nobody would step forward, and so Tyrone and I said, ‘Goddamn, the guy’s got to have a lawyer. We’ll do it.’ ”

Wesley was born on Kennesaw Mountain, Georgia, but his family moved to Florida when he was a baby. He is a graduate of the University of West Florida in Pensacola, and received a master’s degree from Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida. He is a 1981 graduate of the Florida State University Law School.

Huggins would be well represented at his trial.

The two sets of attorneys, prosecution and defense, worked diligently preparing their cases for the John Huggins murder trial now set for January 1999. Meanwhile, another prosecutor worked to prepare a case against Huggins for a bank robbery committed on March 7, 1997, the first of three similar robberies committed in Orlando.

Prosecutor Sandra Deisler appeared in an Orange County courtroom on Friday, October 30, 1998, before a jury of three men and three women, accusing John Steven Huggins of robbing the AmSouth Bank on Michigan Avenue in Orlando.

Huggins confessed to investigators that he robbed the banks, but his attorney Bob Wesley argued to the jury that the confession was bogus.

Huggins also tried to have the robbery cases moved to federal court. He testified that he suffered from blood clots and preferred to serve his sentence in federal prisons because he contended they have better medical facilities.

Prosecutor Deisler presented a powerhouse case. She argued that it was clear from surveillance photos that Huggins used threats and a BB gun (possibly Huggins’s same plastic piece that was recovered in Maryland) to make off with $18,300. The jury found Huggins guilty.

In an added comment, Deisler said that Huggins should be labeled a career criminal because of his long record of crime.

 

 

“Here we go again.” Detective Cameron Weir looked up from the newspaper he was reading.

“What now?” Detective Linnert asked.

“Let me read you an item in this morning’s
Orlando Sentinel.
‘Alex Fishback, Sheriff’s Agent in Brevard County, reported that arrest warrants were issued on Thursday, January 8, 1998, on John Huggins that accuse him of armed robbery with a deadly weapon and possession of a firearm. The warrant specified that Huggins, a convicted felon, is accused of robbery on November 24, 1995, of a Publix Supermarket in the Suntree development, located near Melbourne.’ How do you like that?”

“You know, Cam, we think that we know so much about this guy Huggins and then a whole new chapter opens.”

Weir went on to say, “They’re also asking for warrants on Huggins for the holdup of a Publix market at the Merritt Square Mall.”

“When was that?” Linnert asked.

“That was January 17, 1996.”

Weir continued to read and discuss. “Fishback pointed out that several agencies throughout central Florida are looking at John Huggins for nine different Publix robberies that occurred between August 1995 and January 1996.”

“He must have an affinity for Publix markets. He snatched Carla Larson at one of them,” Linnert recounted.

“Guess you’re right.” Weir read that Fishback indicated that the series of robberies matched each other, as though they were designed and followed through by the same person.

“This is what’s really interesting, John,” Weir went on with a grin. “We never know when some unexpected source will come up with a key to an investigation. You’ll love this. The Brevard robbery cases were inactive. And then a cashier of the Publix market was watching TV and saw Huggins when he was arrested. She recognized him as the man who robbed her store. She was surprised; I guess stunned was a better word. She called the Brevard Sheriff’s Department and told them what she knew about the robbery of the store where she worked, and then about seeing Huggins on TV.”

Weir read that Fishback followed through by taking a photo lineup containing a picture of John Huggins to the Merritt Square Publix market. The cashier witness looked over the photos and, with no hesitation, pointed to the man who robbed her, stating, “That’s him—that’s him,” identifying Huggins.

Alex Fishback said that in the two heists that Huggins pulled in Brevard, he was very calm, very calculating and seemed to know what he was doing.

Shaking his head, Weir commented, “He should. We know that he’s had a lot of practice. He just got very good at it. In the fullest sense of the words, John Steven Huggins really is a career criminal. Crime is his profession, and he works hard at it constantly.”

“He evidently makes enough work to keep several law enforcement forces busy. How much did he get in those two Publix holdups?” Linnert asked.

“The report is that he came away with a thousand or two thousand, just in Brevard.”

“Well, we wondered where he got his money, when he was always listed on his arrest reports as unemployed.” Linnert laughed. “Now we know.”

The location of John Huggins’s trial, although scheduled to be held in Orange County in January 1999, remained undecided.

The defense team of attorneys Bob Wesley and Tyrone King was apprehensive about the massive publicity that the case received, and they thought it would be difficult to select an Orange County jury without preconceived opinions of guilt or innocence.

ASA Jeff Ashton was against moving it out of Orange County and countered, stating that people did not know much about the evidence against the accused Huggins.

Chief Circuit Judge Belvin Perry was concerned with ensuring that the accused receive a fair trial. He was aware of the extraordinary publicity and national attention that was focused on the case, and he, too, questioned whether the case should be tried in Orange County.

It seemed as though everyone had an opinion about the case and it was a popular topic of discussion. One woman was heard to say, “They should hang the bastard for what he did to that lovely young mother. Show him the same mercy he showed her.” That seemed to be the popular sentiment.

In an intense meeting on Monday, November 2, 1998, the two sides presented their arguments before the judge for a change of venue. He finally announced, “All I’m concerned about is that Mr. Huggins get his fair day in court.”

He said that he would make his decision within a week whether the trial would be held in Orange County or be moved to another Florida court.

At a subsequent meeting the judge announced his ruling. The defense prevailed and there would be a change of venue. The trial would be moved to the large city of Jacksonville, located in Duval County, 150 miles northeast of Orlando.

Through the long summer, fall and winter, Bob Wesley and his associate Tyrone King planned the defense strategy that they would use in the ensuing trial, scheduled to begin on January 25, 1999.

In their thorough study of the case and Huggins’s criminal background, the defense lawyers held meetings and depositions with possible witnesses, as well as other official investigators. Wesley and King worked tirelessly, preparing their defense for what promised to be a difficult trial.

When Wesley was ready to depose Detective John Linnert, he learned that the detective was no longer in Florida. Linnert had resigned from the Orange County Sheriff’s Department when his wife was offered an excellent new position in Massachusetts. He told a friend, “This is a great opportunity for my wife, and I don’t want to stand in her way. Besides, I think it will be a wonderful change for us to live in the historic Boston area.”

As a result, Wesley flew to Boston to question the former Orange County investigator about his work in the Carla Larson murder case.

Linnert later described his Boston meeting with Bob Wesley as a “very stressful deposition.” He explained that he “was deposed in the office of a local law firm located on State Street, a short distance from Boston’s old State House and the site of the Boston Massacre.”

He said, “I left work to meet him, and spent at least one and a half hours or more being questioned.”

Stressing the “grilling” that the determined defense attorney put him through, Linnert said, with a restrained smile, “Wesley questioned everything about our investigation, our procedures, all our work on the case, and even asked why I moved to Boston.”

He said that Wesley’s main questions were centered around the veracity of key witnesses.

In their concluding opinions for the defense, Wesley and King were confident that they could and would show that the prosecution’s case lacked actual witnesses and proof to the reported killing, and that their case was ineffective, without evidence. Their premise was that no witness could place the accused John Huggins at the crime scene, and no genetic evidence linked him to the crime. They felt that the evidence was inadequate and therefore did not meet the requirements of “beyond a reasonable doubt” for a guilty verdict.

Speaking to a reporter, defense lawyer Wesley indicated great confidence in his case and said, “We know what we have to do.” He emphasized that it was the duty of the prosecution to prove its case with enough evidence to overcome reasonable doubt.

While the defense toiled away preparing for the Huggins trial, ASA Ashton and ASA Culhan also worked unending hours assembling the case they would present to convict John Steven Huggins of murder.

The prosecuting team agreed that Huggins was not only guilty of murder in the first degree, but that his crime was of such a heinous nature that only a death sentence was the proper punishment that fit the crime. Jeff Ashton stated, “This is a man who lived a life of crime, culminating in this terrible murder.”

As they did with their other witnesses in preparation of their case, the prosecutors spent a great deal of time with Detective Weir.

Weir walked into the reception room of the Orange County/Osceola County State Attorney’s Office at the new courthouse and told the receptionist that ASA Jeff Ashton expected him.

In moments the tall, personable Ashton appeared and warmly greeted him. “Cam, good to see you again.”

He ushered the detective into his private quarters and invited, “Have a chair.”

When they were comfortably seated, Weir looked around, appraising Ashton’s office. “Swanky digs you’ve got here, Jeff. This whole new building is something. Quite a step up from your old quarters in the bank building.”

Ashton grinned in agreement. “Pretty upscale, huh? It’s a new stand, but the same old business. So let’s get to it.”

“Right. Jeff, this is one for the books.”

“It sure looks like it. From our interviews and reading the files, I know that you and Linnert worked like a couple of beavers on it.”

“Yes, it was pretty much a round-the-clock ordeal for us,” Weir told him. “So many times we hit a brick wall; then something would come along and send us on a new track. And we put in some travel time, too.”

Weir recounted the long hours that he and Linnert worked, digging out answers to the homicide. He went over the list of witnesses who saw a man driving the white Ford Explorer on the day of the murder. He detailed their following up endless tips and leads.

“But we were getting nowhere until Angel Huggins came into the case. She’s the estranged wife of John Huggins.”

“I wanted to ask you about her. Is she credible?”

Weir settled back in his chair and focused his sharp brown eyes on Ashton. “We were wary of her at first, but we followed up everything she told us, and it proved to be reliable. Then her sister also provided credibility to Angel’s information.”

Detective Weir reviewed in detail the call from Faye Elms about how she discovered Carla’s jewelry in a wall box in her shed.

The two men went over each detail of the case, with the detective meticulously explaining and the prosecutor listening attentively and making notes, shaking his head and mumbling, “Incredible, incredible.”

Finally Ashton put down his pen and leaned back in his chair. “Cam, you and John did a fantastic job putting this case together. I certainly appreciate your efforts.”

“Thanks, Jeff. We sure put our hearts in it.”

In long sessions with other members of the investigating team, and with various individuals who would be called to testify, the two prosecutors instilled confidence and inspiration in everyone on their side, creating a united front and positive approach in trial.