by Samuel Roen
CHAPTER 26
Jeff Ashton and Ted Culhan relaxed at dinner that evening while waiting for the food. “I think it’s going well, don’t you?” Culhan asked.
“Yes, I do. We’re getting in all the main points we needed to make, and while it’s slow, it’s rolling like a tank, nice and steady.”
“We’ve got Kevin Smith tomorrow, which might be lengthy,” Culhan said.
“But good,” Ashton said. “That poor guy—he’s Wesley’s target for reasonable doubt.”
“Yeah,” Culhan agreed. “Wonder how he’ll like that.”
“Probably not his first choice.” Ashton smiled.
Prosecutor Ted Culhan walked slowly, deliberately, to the podium to face witness Kevin Smith, a tall, thin-faced man in his thirties, with long brown hair, worn in a conspicuous ponytail.
“Sir, could you please tell us your name?”
“Kevin Smith.”
The prosecutor lost no time in tying this witness to John Steven Huggins. “Mr. Smith, is John Huggins an acquaintance of yours?” he asked.
With Smith’s positive answer, Culhan continued questioning. “Did you know him in June of 1997?”
Smith said that he did. Culhan asked a number of questions, establishing where Smith lived, providing the Cocoa Beach address of the duplex and who lived with him.
“Kim Allred,” he answered.
Responding to employment questions, Smith stated that he worked for a lawn service, adding, “I’m a crew leader.”
Culhan continued with questions about Smith’s work hours, the stretch of territory along the Atlantic coast that he serviced—Titusville (twenty-five miles north of Cocoa Beach), south to Palm Bay (about forty miles south of Cocoa Beach)—as crew leader of a two-man crew.
Culhan’s questions brought out that at this particular time in June 1997, Smith was visited by family members, which included his parents and brother who came from Oklahoma City.
In answer to further questions, Smith stated that John Huggins arrived at his home on June 12, driving a white SUV, which he left there, after asking permission to do so. He volunteered, “It was a pretty neat vehicle and made me wonder about where and how John came by it.”
John Huggins scrutinized Smith with a piercing stare, his eyes unblinking, his expression inscrutable. Smith did not look at Huggins.
Culhan produced a photo of the section where the white Explorer was torched, and he asked Smith many questions relative to the vehicle and the territory where it took place, a short distance south of his home.
With that, Culhan concluded his examination of the witness.
Defense attorney Bob Wesley opened his cross-examination with a question about Smith riding a motorcycle in the area where the Explorer was burned.
Smith responded, “I’ve ridden there.”
There was a new wave of audience reaction. The surprise element of the motorcycle set the people buzzing.
Wesley asked Smith, “You had around your duplex a lot of motorcycles and motorcycle parts, didn’t you?”
Upon Smith’s agreement Wesley asked abruptly, “Who is Derek Smith?”
“He was a friend of mine,” Kevin answered. “Also rode bikes.”
“And did he live across A1A from you?”
“Yes,” Smith said, leaning back in the chair with a wary expression.
In the next series of questions that Wesley asked, he learned from the witness that Derek Smith, who was not related to Kevin, drove a white Ford Explorer. And Kevin Smith answered that Derek’s was identical to the SUV belonging to Carla Larson. Smith shifted in his chair, his manner somewhat defiant.
A tense silence fell over the courtroom.
The witness waited, a questioning look on his face.
Wesley had Kevin identify Derek Smith’s white Ford Explorer from a photo that he produced. The jury could see it later and identify it.
As Bob Wesley kept up his barrage of questions to Kevin Smith, the reporters began to speculate about the defense lawyer’s intention, and the agreement among the press was that Wesley was creating inklings of doubt for his client, John Huggins. By Kevin Smith’s admission that Derek’s SUV was identical to the vehicle that John Huggins parked at Smith’s home, which was later destroyed by fire, he was creating uncertainty for the jury by focusing instead on Derek Smith.
The defense lawyer stretched to his full height of 6’6” and continued with seemingly endless questions to Kevin Smith about June 10 and June 12, the days he worked.
The result was that Smith, hopelessly confused, stammered his answers senselessly. “It seems like that . . . I don’t know,” Smith babbled, “if I was or not (referring to the date), but I took that day off to get ready for my incoming family.”
“You just took Friday off?” Wesley sounded surprised.
“Yeah, you got to work—I mean, I’m having trouble with our accommodations—and Monday—since I’m in Jacksonville,” Smith prattled.
The defense lawyer continued without letup to press the totally confused Kevin Smith for answers, which failed to make much sense.
Wesley made an abrupt turn in his questions, asking, “You knew John Huggins because you were a drug supplier to John Huggins, is that right?” He waited, the courtroom frozen into silence.
“That’s a good way to put it,” came the meek reply.
John Huggins never took his eyes off Kevin Smith, but his face was impassive.
Wesley continued: “And your source for drugs was Derek. Is that right?”
“Yeah, it’s marijuana is what we’re talking about. Marijuana.”
“And that’s how you made your money, correct, sir?”
“No, no,” Kevin Smith denied. “It’s not correct,” he protested with a new spark of life.
Standing back from the lectern, Wesley asked commandingly, “Well—was Derek a drug dealer?”
With his eyes casting about the courtroom as though looking for a way to escape from this ordeal, Smith managed to say, “No, actually he was involved in the lawn business, too.”
As Kevin Smith sat mute, awaiting the next salvo from the defense lawyer, he wiped his perspiring forehead, undoubtedly wishing that he were any place other than here. Wesley followed up relentlessly. “What role did you play in distributing drugs for Derek?”
Ted Culhan, who listened silently to the haranguing of Smith by Wesley, reached the point of “enough.” He sprang to his feet, objecting, “Irrelevant. Impeachment by prior bad acts.”
In quick order Judge Perry ruled, “Sustained.”
Wesley turned the direction of his attack, asking Kevin Smith about his residence and the general area, which resulted in another confusing discussion. At the attorney’s direction Smith left the witness stand to approach a displayed photograph of the locale. The lawyer continued with repetitive questions before Kevin Smith was permitted finally to return to the witness chair.
John Huggins sat watching the barrage on his friend as though he were simply a disinterested spectator, not personally involved in this whole thing.
After a renewed merry-go-round of questions, Wesley asked Smith about knowing Angel Huggins. Kevin said he knew her as John’s wife, had seen her only once or twice.
Wesley asked, “In the summer of ’97, you were aware John Huggins was charged with this crime, correct?”
“Yes,” he mumbled, barely audible.
“And then after that time, Angel Huggins moved in with you and Kim, is that right?”
“No, that’s not correct, either,” Smith answered smugly, shaking his head.
Wesley asked, “She moved in with Kim?”
“I’ve heard so,” he responded in a sullen tone.
More rounds of questions continued, until Wesley asked, “Have you met with Angel Huggins in the past two months or so to talk about testimony in this case?”
Culhan objected but was overruled.
Smith stated flatly that when they met, there were no discussions of the case.
After a brief recess, court was resumed with the defense attorney continuing his examination of Smith.
Wesley showed Kevin a photograph and asked if it accurately depicted his appearance in 1997. Smith responded that it did, and he smiled proudly.
“In the summer of 1997, were you employed in the landscape business?”
“Yes.”
“You worked outside?”
“Yes.” He tilted his head, a questioning expression on his face that seemed to ask silently, “Where the hell would you work in the landscape business?”
“You usually have a dark suntan?”
“Yeah, I would say so.”
“All right. Also you and your girlfriend, Kim, liked to go across to the beach, too, when you had time to lay in the sun?”
The witness stared at the lawyer and, in a puzzled tone, answered, “Yes, we did.”
“So your personal preference was to have a suntan or a dark tan?”
Nodding his head, he stated, “Yes, I’d say so.”
“By your work and by your hobby?”
“Just kind of goes with it, yeah.”
“Okay. Mr. Smith, you wear your hair long, is that correct?”
“Yes, I do.” He straightened in the witness chair and answered defiantly.
“Is it in a ponytail right now?”
“Yes, it is.” He smiled.
“How long have you worn your hair in a ponytail?”
Smith rubbed his head, searching his mind. “Probably like six or seven years. Ever since I got out of the military, I started letting it grow. Had a lot of regulations there. I just quit cutting it.”
“And in June of 1997, was your hair that long?”
“Yes, it would be.”
Wesley asked about the sunglasses in the photo and Kevin said that he usually “put them on my visor.”
“Of your cap?”
“Yes.”
Murmurs in the courtroom by the onlookers speculated whether the defense attorney was trying to establish that Kevin Smith, not John Huggins, fit the description given by eyewitnesses of the man driving the Explorer on June 10, 1997.
Wesley turned to the subject of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department detectives questioning him.
“First evening they showed up I wasn’t there.” Smith explained that a card was left with his girlfriend and he called the OCSD and met with them the next afternoon.
Wesley charged that Smith was “not there because you were directly across the street watching them, is that right? At Derek’s house?”
“No, no, but I did go over to Derek’s house.”
“So there was not a time when law enforcement officers came to your home, you left?”
“No,” he answered vehemently.
Wesley changed course again. “What date was it that you say that John Huggins brought the truck to your house?”
“I think we all talked about it being the twelfth.”
“It was on a Friday?”
“Yeah.” (Actually June 12 was on Thursday, but no one seemed to catch that.)
“And you were just hanging out in your yard that day?”
“Well, yeah, I was finishing the last of my prep for my family coming to town. We were having a big Father’s Day party.”
Wesley asked about a man named Mike Varcadipane and was told that he was the owner of the lawn service Kevin worked for.
The defense attorney continued to question and confuse the witness, until finally, after repetitive introduction of the same questions, the session came to an end.
Kevin Smith walked out of the courtroom, passing John Huggins but avoiding making eye contact.
Prosecutor Jeff Ashton confidently moved to a position facing Detective Cameron Weir, who took the witness stand and was already sworn in to testify.
“Please state your name,” Ashton requested.
“Cameron George Weir.”
After identifying Weir as a detective with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, Ashton asked him many questions regarding the crime area where Carla Larson’s body was found.
Weir gave a long description about the details of the crime and his investigation.
Turning to another subject, Ashton asked if Weir had occasion to meet with Kevin Smith in the summer of 1997.
“Yes, I did,” he responded, his bright eyes alert.
Ashton then followed with a series of questions that included seeing Smith today and details about the length of Smith’s hair today, as compared with what it was in July 1997.
“If I recall correctly,” Weir projected, “his hair is longer at this time than it was then.”
The prosecutor, deeply interested in Kevin Smith’s hair and overall appearance, drilled away at the detective, asking, “Did the hair extend down below the collar, noticeably below the collar?”
“Yes, sir,” Weir confirmed with surety.
Ashton inquired, “When you met with Mr. Smith, did he have his hair in a ponytail as he did today?”
“At various times,” the detective responded. “I believe that he did.”
Ashton asked, “Now, did Mr. Smith give you the name of the person that he was working with on June 10, 1997?”
“Yes, he did.”
“And did you find that person?”
“Yes, I did.” Weir told him that it was Mike Varcadipane.
“Okay, sir. Now, did you speak to Mr. Varcadipane about Mr. Smith’s whereabouts on June 10, 1997?”
“Yes, sir,” Weir confirmed, nodding his head.
“And after that conversation, did you do any further investigation of Kevin Smith as a suspect in the murder of Carla Larson?”
“No, sir,” he answered in a positive, assuring voice. Weir was satisfied in his thorough investigation of this murder case that Kevin Smith had no part in the killing of Carla Larson.
Wesley began his cross-examination by referring to the photo of Kevin Smith that was previously displayed. He asked Weir, “Does that appear to be the way that Mr. Smith presented himself on June of 1997?”
“Yes, sir,” Weir affirmed authoritatively.
After more reexaminations and more cross-examinations over various fine points of Weir’s testimony, he was excused, the last witness of the day.
It was Friday, almost the weekend that Jeff Ashton and Ted Culhan were anticipating, hoping to get away for a trip home to Orlando.
“Well, Jeff, it looks like we’re going to be stuck here working all weekend.”
“Yeah, I had that feeling. If we plan to finish presenting our case on Monday, Wesley will start with his witnesses and his technical experts, so we have to be prepared.” Ashton sighed. “And I was so looking forward to a change of pace, time to clear my mind.”
“Oh, well, it will soon be over and we can go home to stay,” Culhan comforted.
“I can hardly wait.”
CHAPTER 27
In the wrap-up of the state’s case on Monday, February 1, 1999, Jeff Ashton, after securing permission from Judge Perry to show it to the jury, nodded to the bailiff to start the videotaped television interview conducted by TV reporter Steve Olson with Huggins while he was incarcerated in the Seminole County Jail.
Huggins on the videotape was quite a contrast from the defendant who sat here on trial neatly dressed in a conservative blue suit, white shirt and subdued necktie, his hair trimmed and combed.
The jury watched with rapt attention as the defendant asserted that he didn’t think he killed Carla Larson because “I’m not that kind of a guy.” They heard him talk about his blackouts from his medications coupled with drug and alcohol abuse. And they listened attentively as he said, “Inside myself I feel I didn’t kill her.”
When the tape concluded, the courtroom was still. The jury automatically turned to look at John Huggins as he sat quietly with his head lowered. His expression remained bland, unreadable.
Ted Culhan rose and announced that the state rested.
Defense lawyer Bob Wesley stood before the jury,
confidently asserting that his client, John Huggins, was innocent of the crime of which he was accused and now being tried.
As his attorney began to present the defense’s evidence, Huggins sat silently, watching everything with full attention.
The crowded, almost to capacity, courtroom listened as Wesley presented a forensic scientist who contended that hairs found with the body of Carla Larson did not match hair from John Huggins, the accused. The implication was that the hairs might belong to Huggins’s friend Kevin Smith, who the defense was hinting was the real killer.
A wave of reacting comments drifted across the room and the judge rapped for order and quiet.
ASA Jeff Ashton made the point that the defense never compared hair from Smith to the hair found at the murder scene. He also contended that the absence of Huggins’s hair at the murder scene did not prove that he was not there.
By presenting nine expert witnesses over Monday and Tuesday, February 1 and 2, Wesley and King tried to convince the jury that Kevin Smith of Cocoa Beach could be the killer. They said Smith resembled the early drawings of the possible killer. They also made note of the fact that Smith had the radar detector from the Larson vehicle.
Wesley said, “And there’s nothing to support what Kevin Smith says, except Kevin Smith.”
The defense team continued to stress the lack of physical evidence to link Huggins to the crime. There were no fingerprints, no DNA, no hair, no proof of any connection that their client had anything to do with it.
In their presentation the defense concentrated on instilling reasonable doubt into the minds of the jurors. If the jury bought that premise, John Huggins conceivably could walk away from the murder charge.
The defense attorneys tried to cast doubt on Angel Huggins’s testimony about the time that she said her husband was gone from the motel on June 10, 1997.
The onlookers were curious about how the defense would explain away the prosecution’s key evidence of Carla Larson’s jewelry found at Huggins’s mother-in-law’s house, but the defense skirted the issue and finally rested.