Prosecution calls Conley's cell mate to testify
Friday, June 6, 2008 6:51 AM PDT
By Leslie Slape
Printable version
E-mail this articleInmates from a state prison and the county jail testified for the prosecution Thursday in the murder trial of Taylor Tom Conley, and one of them said he feared retaliation for speaking out.
“I don’t want to say things that will get me hurt or my family hurt,” said Nick Hicks, an inmate at the Walla Walla State Penitentiary. “I’m worried about getting stabbed.”
Conley, 22, is accused shooting of Brian Swehla, 42, during a robbery attempt at his Longview home early in the morning of March 31, 2006. His trial began Monday.
Hicks and county jail inmate Justin Brewer spent time with Conley while he has been incarcerated awaiting trial, and both gave statements to police about conversations with him.
But during their testimony Thursday, attorneys had to pull the words out.
“We talked vaguely about those events,” Brewer said. “Nothing was ever specific, always around the bush.”
Eventually he admitted Conley mentioned a robbery at Swehla’s Sequoia Drive house, a struggle and upper body wounds.
“Did Mr. Conley admit anything specific?” Prosecutor Megan Hallin asked.
“Shooting him in the upper body,” Brewer said.
Hallin asked him if testifying brought him any benefit.
“Only trouble, miss,” he said.
During cross examination, defense attorney Sam Wardle suggested that Brewer — who was in jail for a misdemeanor — was planted in the felony wing near Conley as a snitch.
Brewer denied it.
“I’ve heard things like ‘rat, snitch,’ ” he said. “But there’s a time in a man’s life to do what’s right.”
Wardle asked him if there’s anything in his statement to police he’d like to take back.
“The only thing I’d take back is that Taylor was the triggerman,” he said.
He said Conley implied he fired the shot, but didn’t say so directly.
Hicks had the same impression when he and Conley shared a county jail cell.
“He never once really implicated himself, but I took it that way,” he said.
Prosecutors allege that Ronald Weller-Childers and Conley got high on meth, went to Swehla’s home, robbed him at gunpoint, then shot him. Conley, who has been charged with first-degree aggravated murder or, in the alternative, first-degree murder, is accused of firing the fatal shot at Swehla.
Weller-Childers already has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder charges in Swehla’s death and was sentenced to nearly 20 years in prison. He is expected to testify in Conley’s trial Monday.
In the woods with rifles
In other testimony Thursday, Swehla’s next-door neighbor said she saw something unusual on Sequoia Drive after she took her kids to school on the day of the murder.
Rosemary Daly said she noticed “two men walking through the woods with backpacks and rifles.”
Daly said she heard one of the men say, “ ‘Oh, no, I think she’s home now! I think she sees us.’ ”
She said they headed downhill.
A short time later, Carmen Eastlick came out to her carport on Pacific Terrace, downhill from Sequoia Drive, and saw two men at a Toyota pickup in the parking lot behind Evergreen Terrace Gospel Chapel.
She heard “several loud thumps, as if they were throwing something into the pickup bed,” and saw them pull off their boots and something over their heads, she testified.
As soon as they left, Eastlick called 911 at 8:57 a.m. and asked for a deputy to check Sequoia Drive to make sure everything was OK.
Daly never called 911.
“I didn’t have to,” she said. “They (deputies) came up the road to me.”
Prosecutors are contending the murder already had taken place. Sheriff’s deputies drove out to Sequoia Drive but did not find anything unusual. They did not search Swehla’s house because they had no apparent cause to enter.
Daly admitted knowing Taylor Conley from when he lived in Swehla’s house with his son, Bob. But when deputies initially questioned her about the men, she said she didn’t recognize them.
In a later interview with detectives, she identified Conley in a photo montage. In the courtroom Thursday, she told jurors Conley was one of the men she saw.
Eastlick was unable to positively identify either of the men from photo montages.
Hardesty resentful
During a court recess, Swehla’s girlfriend, Amy Hardesty, gestured with irritation toward Conley, who was chatting with his wife and mother under the watchful eyes of corrections officers. His mother, who is on the witness list, is only allowed in the courtroom during breaks.
“I think it’s ridiculous they get to talk,” Hardesty said.
She also griped at Wardle’s forceful cross examination of her Tuesday.
“He’s totally trying to make it sound like I did this,” she said.
She questioned why Swehla’s son, Bob, who invited Conley to live in the home when Swehla was in jail, isn’t being called to testify.
Missing witnesses
Material witness warrants have been issued for two men who were subpoenaed to testify in the trial but did not show up.
James Zebley, owner of the Toyota pickup that Conley allegedly used that day, was supposed to testify Wednesday and did not show up Thursday either.
Darin Wolf, whose home Conley is alleged to have visited a few days after the murder, was supposed to testify Thursday but did not show.
lola*in*longview wrote on Jun 6, 2008 12:00 AM:
Hawkster wrote on Jun 6, 2008 12:12 AM:
Francis wrote on Jun 6, 2008 9:10 AM:
opinionated wrote on Jun 6, 2008 11:57 AM:
RIP BRIAN SWEHLA!
You are in our hearts, always and forever! "
hawkster wrote on Jun 6, 2008 1:27 PM:
i agree with you for all but the fact that the trial should have happened 2 years ago. if you want complete justice then the prosecution needs time to make its case one that can not be lost. it takes a lot of time to get witnesses and evidence together and the more time they had the better. "
SPARROW wrote on Jun 6, 2008 2:56 PM:
lola*in*longview wrote on Jun 6, 2008 5:20 PM:
piper wrote on Jun 6, 2008 5:50 PM:
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