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JURY TO DELIBERATE TODAY IN MURDER TRIAL

By Ray King/OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF
Wednesday, March 26, 2008 8:18 AM CDT

The prosecution and defense rested Tuesday evening in the second trial of a Pine Bluff woman accused of two counts of capital murder stemming from a Jan. 16, 2006, incident.

The jury in Ymari Boyce-Reid’s trial was sent home about 6:20 p.m. Tuesday and will return at 9 a.m. today for jury instructions and closing arguments before beginning deliberations.

Boyce-Reid, 22, has pleaded innocent in the shooting deaths of Angela Hicks, 36, and Christopher Allen, 30, whose bodies were found in the front yard of a house at 3217 W. 4th Ave.

Circuit Judge Berlin Jones declared a mistrial in the first trial in September after jurors told the court they were deadlocked.

The defense has contended that Angela Bell, 29, who was in the car with Boyce-Reid, Hicks and Allen, did the shooting.

On Monday, Bell denied those accusations, telling prosecutors she saw Boyce-Reid shoot Allen and Hicks, then run from the car to a nearby house and get a ride to a relative’s home where she called authorities.

Boyce-Reid was arrested two days later hiding in the trunk of a car in a garage in the Dollarway area, after reportedly burning the clothes she had been wearing, as well as a Glock .45-caliber semi-automatic handgun police believe was the murder weapon.

A spring that appeared to be from a Glock pistol was found in a burn barrel at the house, and a slide and barrel from a Glock Model 21, .45-caliber pistol that were rusted and appeared to have been burned were found at another location.

Before the state rested its case Tuesday, prosecutors introduced a confession Boyce-Reid allegedly wrote during an interview with former police Lt. Marx Mitchell on Jan. 18, 2006.

Attorney John Kearney, who is representing Boyce-Reid, said she denied authoring the hand-written document, or signing it, but after a lengthy conference at the bench the judge ruled it would be introduced as evidence.

Testifying about that interview, Mitchell said he asked Boyce-Reid to write the statement after a verbal interview where she admitted the slayings.

“She said she ‘did commit the crimes in question because they were trying to get her to use cocaine and have group sex with all of them’,” Mitchell said on the witness stand.

Mitchell told Deputy Prosecutor Rik Ramsey he asked Boyce-Reid to write the statement, titled a letter of apology “because that’s what it is.”

“I think I told her it was better to put things down on paper and she would feel better after telling the truth,” Mitchell said.

Prosecutors contend Boyce-Reid had been partying with Hicks, who was known on the street as “Pig,” Allen, also known as “Cuda,” and Bell (Angie) at the Economy Inn on Dollarway Road before driving to a house in the Packingtown area, allegedly to buy marijuana at Boyce-Reid’s request.

In the statement Mitchell read to the jury of seven women and six men, Boyce-Reid wrote that she loaned Hicks money to rent a room at the Economy Inn and when Bell and Hicks went into the bathroom, “I left and went to my house and got my gun because I never go anywhere without it.

“When I got back, Cuda was there and they were talking about smoking powder (cocaine), but I don’t do that,” Boyce-Reid allegedly wrote. “I smoke weed (marijuana) and drink.”

After leaving the motel, Boyce-Reid reportedly wrote that the four went to a liquor store and en route, “Pig and Angie were trying to get me to have a foursome with them. We pulled up to what I thought was the weed and powder house and Cuda told me to strip and started trying to take off my clothes.

“I felt my life was in danger as well as my body, so when Cuda reached for his gun, I shot him in the head, then Pig started to go for the gun, so I shot her two times,” Mitchell quoted Boyce-Reid as writing in the statement.

During cross examination, Mitchell admitted he retired from the police department because of lower back problems, as well as post traumatic stress syndrome, but denied Kearney’s claims that while working as an officer, “you wanted to do things your own way.”

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