Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 20

20A DETROIT FREE PRESSTUESDAY, AUGUST 9, 1988 K'Vf: tFrffa 'ffl ill Key point: Easter's warning Jury questioned mother's action I mi inn iiiiljpiii.111 WIIUW "jM fmmmm'i 1 ') a j- f- ill 1 I 7 i Vjrm HvR I I tK'J I I ft From left, defense attorneys Gerald Evelyn, left, Juan Mateo and Sam Churikian leave the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice the Victims Jury convicts Easter and her sons of murdering policemen in motel BY BOB CAMPBELL Free Press Staff Writer Three jurors said Monday that a taped telephone call in which Alberta Easter told police she would have to be "carried out on a stretcher" before surrendering on a bad-check warrant convinced the jury of her guilt. Inkster Police Sgt. Ira Parker, who spoke with Easter, subsequently drove to the Bungalow Motel and was among three police officers slain in a hail of gunfire inside the room on July 9, 1987. The tape was played during the prosecution's opening arguments and replayed for jurors while they deliberated the fate of Easter and her sons Roy, William and George Lemons. The jury of seven women and five men on Monday found the four guilty of first-degree murder, ending the 13-week trial after 2'2 days of deliberation.

Christina Towell, a juror from Allen Park, said members of the panel agreed early in their deliberations on the guilt of the three sons but were unclear about Easter's role until they studied the tape. Witnesses testified that the sons all fired guns, but testimony was less clear on Easter's role. Towell said the tape showed that Easter seemed to be directing her sons' actions inside the room. "I think that listening to the tapes of Alberta Easter's conversation with Ira Parker at the police station was what finally helped to make it a unanimous decision," said Towell, 40, an assistant manager of a women's clothing store. Towell said, "The fact that she wasn't going to be leaving that room that's when when we more or less thought it was pre-meditated." The jury voted two or three times before reaching a unanimous decision on Easter's guilt but only once or twice on the three sons, Towell said.

Jury foreman Luke Harden, a retiree from Detroit, said they replayed a part of the tape on which Easter "said she was the head of the family. That meant that she was responsible for what happened. If she was responsible, she should have done something to stop the shooting." Juror Edna Alford, a Detroit home-maker, agreed that the tapes were crucial in reaching their verdict against Easter. "Especially the comments that Mrs. Easter gave we timed it," she said.

The tape showed a gap of less than two minutes between the time Parker arrived at the motel to assist officers Daniel Dubiel and Clay Hoover and when the motel manager called, saying shooting had broken out inside the room. Prosecutors used that tape to argue that Parker was shot virtually as soon as he entered Room 105, suggesting an ambush. Asked whether jurors found there was an ambush, Alford said: "No it was something that happened. The officers were just killed. We felt George and Roy were more guilty than the others." Harden said the jury was sensitive to the issue of race because Easter and her sons, who are black, killed two white officers.

Parker was black. "I didn't want any of the colored stuff brought in, so that we could start with a clean slate that these are people and deserve a fair trial," said Harden, who is black. The jury of seven blacks and five whites was composed of two home-makers, a retiree, an assistant store manager, two secretaries, two accountants, an unemployed man, a draftsman and two blue-collar workers. 1 IIMBMHHIW Uti Iberia can fl never see her sons again and that makes me happy. Melissa Chmielewski Officer Hoover's fiancee Sgt.

Ira Parker Age: 41 Personal: Survived by wife, Dorothy, and four children; joined the Inkster police force in 1972. INKSTER VERDICT, from Page 1A Murphy Hall of Justice before Wayne County Circuit Judge Richard Hathaway. Members of the slain officers' families, most of whom attended every day of the trial, hugged and kissed Douglas Baker and Barbara Smith, assistant Wayne County prosecutors. "1 wish they had gotten the death penalty," said Hoover's former fiancee, Melissa Chmielewski, 25, contacted after the verdict. "Alberta can never see her sons again and that makes me happy.

Let her live with that for a while." The jury verdicts ran into a snag when foreman Harden told Hathaway that the jury had settled the murder charges and a total of 27 other, lesser counts against family members, but were deadlocked on one assault count against Koy Lemons, and another against William Lemons. Ordered to return to their deliberations, jurors soon pronounced Roy Lemons guilty of a reduced charge of assault with intent to do great bodily harm. Prosecutors then dropped the charge against William Lemons, and the jury's long duty was over. Alberta Easter was convicted of three murder charges only. The three sons all were also convicted of using a firearm during a felony.

The sons either were acquitted or found guilty of reduced charges on a series of assault counts involving the shootout and standoff after the slayings. Juror Edna Alford of Detroit said the evidence that did the most to convict Easter was an Inkster Police it 1 1 tape of her talking by telephone to Parker. In the tape, Easter warns Parker sue will not be arrested on the bad-check warrant and makes veiled threats, such as warning that the only way she would be removed from her rooms was "on a stretcher." Prosecutors argued that her sons carried out Easter's threats by taking the officers hostage. Defense attorneys said an appeal would be likely over issues such as Ilathaway's refusal to hold separate trials for each family member. But Baker said he was confident that verdicts would stand.

Despite widespread publicity and outrage over the killings, "I didn't feel community pressure to convict," Baker said. "1 felt it was a case where three people were brutally slain, and trying to get the best evidence was our role." Don Hoover, father of Officer Hoover, said, "We think the jury brought in a fair verdict. There was no doubt in my mind they were guilty." Clay Hoover's sister, Lisa, said: "We can close the door on the trial, but Defendants were cool, but upset By Jack Kresnak Free Press Staff Writer Although they displayed no emotions publicly, Alberta Easter and her three sons were angry and upset about their convictions in the slayings of three Inkster police officers, a defense attorney said Monday. "They were certainly upset with the verdict," said Juan Mateo, who represented William Lemons. "They were very angry.

Just because they didn't show obvious emotions, it doesn't mean they didn't react to the verdict. Under the circumstances, their reaction was justified." While defense attorneys glumly talked with reporters about issues on which the defendants could appeal, assistant prosecutors Douglas Baker and Barbara Smith were hugged and congratulated by the families and friends of the officers. "The survivors and loved ones re- minded me every day of what was at stake," Baker said. "They were very supportive." Mateo and three other defense attorneys Gerald Evelyn, Sam Churikian and Henry Scharg said there were a number of issues that could overturn the convictions on appeal. Among the issues was Wayne County Circuit Judge Richard Hatha-way's refusal to allow defense attorneys to question potential jurors, and his refusal to hold separate trials for each defendant.

"Everything that we thought would make a difference in the case, we lost on," Evelyn said of defense motions denied by Hathaway. Evelyn, who represented Easter, said that if Easter had been granted a separate trial, she might have been able to testify on her own behalf. But if Easter or her sons had testified, Evelyn said, they would have faced questions about the actions of each other and could have implicated each other. The defense attorneys, who rested last week without presenting witnesses, said they were surprised by the convictions, contending the prosecution had not proved Easter and her sons acted with premeditation in the deaths of Sgt. Ira Parker and Officers Daniel Dubiel and Clay Hoover.

"I would've been happy with an acquittal; I think that would have been a reasonable verdict for my client (Easter)," Evelyn said. "There was no actual evidence that she told anyone to do anything." But Baker said the jury believed his contention that Alberta Easter "orchestrated the event, announced the plan and in effect was the prime mover of events. Her sons were her weapons. "I didn't see anything happen in this case that would make me apprehensive of a reversal on appeal. The question of whether we proved it or not was answered by the jury." a it doesn't help anything." Parker's wife had attended some sessions of the trial but was not in court when the verdict came in.

State police Sgt. William (Skip) Ward, the detective in charge of the case, said he was troubled by Easter's claims, in interviews with news reporters, that Parker had caused the bloodbath by bullying Easter. "What disturbed me was the damage done to the Parker family," Ward said. "All he left behind was his pension and his reputation and Alberta Easter destroyed that, and I don't think I'll ever be able to forgive her. "The jury finding them guilty proves the belief that these officers were performing their jobs and they died in the line of duty.

But it still doesn't remove the pain or the hurt or the loss." The night of the murders, Officers Hoover and Dubiel went to the Bungalow to serve the warrant for a bad check Easter and Roy Lemons had written to Rent A Jalopy. When Easter insisted to Dubiel and Hoover that the warrant was improper, the officers summoned Parker to the room. A witness said shooting broke out almost the moment Parker entered. Gunmen from the room then were seen spraying the motel and Michigan Avenue with gunfire. State police finally talked the barricaded family into surrendering.

The three officers were found dead of multiple gunshot wounds. Monday's verdict came after a trial in which prosecutors presented 69 witnesses; defense attorneys presented none. In a surprise move July 27, Easter and her sons waived their right to testify. Easter, who has sought media attention beginning with her phoned negotiations with police the night of the standoff, was expected to use the trial as a personal public forum. In closing arguments last week, prosecutors said the 29 bullet wounds found in the three officers and the single nicked thumb Roy Lemons suffered pointed to an ambush.

Attorneys for the Lemonses argued that when Parker entered the family's room, he made a sudden move toward Easter, causing Parker to go for his gun and sparking a spontaneous shootout. The defense lawyers suggested many of the officers' wounds including those inflicted by their own guns were fired into their bodies after they had already died. Jurors began deliberating just after 3 p.m. Wednesday, and continued through Thursday, Friday and Monday. Hathaway will sentence the family at 9 a.m.

Sent. 13. Free Press staff writers Jack Kresnak, Rob Campbell, David Jones, David McIIugh, Lori Mathews and Mary-anne George contributed to this report. Officer Clay Hoover Age: 24 Personal: Engaged at time of death to marry Melissa Chmielewski; was a part-time Van Buren Township police officer before joining the Inkster force in March 1987 A mpwmr I 'T-I ll I I i I I 1.1 'H li Hii lift u-. MP 7.1!'.

I i if will ill i-, 4mm' i ml tllLftumiMini-n i ii -i -i Jt I Officer Daniel John Dubiel Age: 36 Personal: Survived by wife, Laura, and four children; joined the Inkster police force in 1974. MARY SCHROEDERDetrolt Free Press Juror Christina Towell of Allen Park tries to elude news reporters as she enters a parking garage..