Trey Zwicker was afraid of the dark and it was in a dark ditch where he was brutally murdered by Josh Gouker and Josh Young. Where he was found face down, covered in blood. Where he was found with his face smashed in and teeth chipped. Where he was found with his skull bashed open, his head and back having been struck multiple times, maybe with a bat, maybe with a metal pipe.
We don’t know what the instrument of Trey’s death was because the defendant woke up his cousin in the middle of the night after he and his father committed the murder and asked her to help him get rid of a bloody bat and clothes and she did.3
For nearly twenty minutes, White detailed the gruesome nature of the crime, the horrific scene where Trey’s body was found and the investigation that the prosecution contended ultimately led to Josh Gouker and Josh Young. She anticipated the testimony of the medical examiner, warning the jurors, “you are going to hear about the wounds Trey suffered—the damage that was done to his skull and to his face and his teeth. And because he was left outside, you are going to hear about the flies and the fly eggs.”4 Courtroom spectators could see the jurors were rapt with attention, soaking in every word. She implored the jurors to pay close attention to the witnesses and to do their best to gauge the credibility of each person who took the stand.
White likened the case to “one thousand pieces of a really complicated puzzle.”5 The basic strategy involved in assembling the pieces of the puzzle was building the framework and piecing together the exterior boundaries prior to filling in the interior. She promised that the prosecution team would do their best to build the framework for the jury, but she emphasized that it would be the duty of the jury to fill in the pieces.
Looking into the eyes of each individual juror, White revealed that there was no question that Josh Gouker was involved in the brutal and unfathomable murder of his stepson. She did not hide her disgust from the jury panel as she took a deep breath and switched gears to speaking directly about Gouker: “Ladies and gentlemen, make no mistake. There is one thing both sides agree on and that is that Josh Gouker is a monster and a murderer. But do not be distracted. This is not his trial. This is the trial of Josh Young.”6 She explained that she planned to call Gouker and did not know what to expect. She revealed that she had “no idea what he might say when he gets on the stand. We just want to give you the opportunity to hear from him, to hear his lies and get the full picture. We don’t want to hide anything from you.” Gouker was testifying of his own volition. There were no “…deals for testimony in this case. You are going to have to sort through a lot to get to the truth. That is what your job is.”7 She assigned the jurors the responsibility of deciding whether Gouker named Josh Young as the killer to save himself or whether he gave him a blueprint for murder.
After a short pause, she again made eye contact with the jury and eloquently wrapped up her opening statement:
There is no question that Josh Gouker is guilty of the murder of Trey Zwicker. There is also no question that he involved his son, Josh Young, in that murder. He either threw him under the bus to deflect the attention from himself, or he took him under his wing and taught him how to commit murder. Ladies and gentlemen, we believe the evidence supports the latter.8
Once White had taken her seat behind the prosecution table, Pete Schuler rose slowly and made his way toward the podium that faced the jurors. He reminded the jury that the information they heard during opening statements was not evidence. He took a step further and informed the jury that the defense agreed with most of what the prosecutor said as she addressed the jury. He began by stating, “We agree with probably 80 percent of the stuff that the prosecutor said, but she is wrong about one thing. Josh Young was not involved in his stepbrother’s murder.”9
Schuler turned toward the projection screen on the wall of the courtroom and explained, “I have a presentation that I would like to present.” He clicked to the first slide; the heading “A Tale of Two Victims” filled the screen. He continued, “So what is this case about? Every case has a theme. This is a tale of two innocent victims. The first victim is someone who will certainly not be forgotten in this case: Trey Zwicker. Trey Zwicker was fourteen when he was murdered by Gouker.”10 However, Schuler claimed that Josh Young was a victim as well.
Not only had Josh endured unspeakable horrors during the six weeks he lived with his father, but he also underwent a terrifying ordeal afterward. He contended that his client was a “patsy” and that “he was set up by his father to take the fall for his crime, for something that his father did. He is not guilty.” His voice rising, he thundered, “The story you are going to hear is outrageous.”11
Throughout his opening statement, Pete Schuler displayed an eye-catching slide show detailing the defense’s position on many of the issues in the case and showcased what was to come. It included mug shots of Gouker and the scene where Liberty High School students discovered Trey’s body. The slide show also highlighted the timeline in the case which was very beneficial to courtroom viewers. It gave a precise listing of specific events that were important to the case, like the date Gouker regained custody of Little Josh, the date the Department of Corrections released Gouker and the dates of various lies Gouker told.
Schuler continued by telling the jurors that they would meet a cast of characters in the trial who were not like them, who led lifestyles well outside what society considered normal. They were people who were motivated by things that the jurors probably could not understand. There would be witnesses who had never worked a day in their lives and who downed daily cocktails of drugs and booze. They would meet people who would say and do anything for a variety of reasons, none of which would be because their actions were the right thing to do.
Justice for Trey and justice for Josh Young meant holding the correct person accountable for Trey’s brutal murder. Schuler emphasized the violent past of Gouker and the fact that everything he said should be suspect. He was a classic liar and a successful manipulator. Gouker was a true criminal mastermind, a puppet master with an innate ability to get other people to do exactly what he wanted. That’s what he had done in this case. Schuler ended by telling the jurors that by the end of the trial, after hearing all of the evidence, he was confident that they would return a verdict of not guilty.
Both parties were eloquent and effective in laying out their respective cases and the jurors appeared primed for what was to come. Each side held a very different view of the upcoming evidence in the case. It would be up to the jurors to listen to all that evidence and ultimately render a verdict.
Chapter 13
The Prosecution
In the morning hours of July 31, 2013, the prosecution in the matter of Commonwealth v. Joshua Young began presenting its side of the case. Shortly before lunch-time, the Commonwealth called Molly Varner as its first witness. Ms. Varner, who was an Arts and Humanities teacher at Liberty High School, made her way to the stand. Dressed in a blue cardigan and black camisole, Ms. Varner appeared the quintessential schoolteacher with her strawberry blond hair pulled back and wispy fringes of bangs falling lightly across her forehead.
She described the afternoon of May 11, 2011, when she and her students took a respite from class to walk around the Liberty High School grounds, something she had done repeatedly on nice days during the six years she was employed there. She described a student’s initial shout that he had discovered a body on the outskirts of the campus. Believing he was kidding, she had walked briskly toward the area where the student pointed. She told how she felt her heart sink when she realized that there was indeed a body there, face down on the muddy banks of the creek bed. The children were in a frenzy, yelling “Are you okay?” The body remained immobile. Quickly she ushered the children back inside the building and promptly notified administrators who got in touch with the police department. Her stark testimony set the tone for the trial and described graphically for the jurors the turmoil at the scene when Trey’s body was discovered. Obviously, the situation still haunted the quie
t schoolteacher.1
As Varner’s testimony came to a close and she exited the courtroom, the Commonwealth next called Officer John Pittenger to the stand. Pittenger, a twenty-year veteran of the Louisville Metro Police Department, worked as a patrol officer in the sixth division where Liberty High School was located. He had been driving down Poplar Level Road when he heard a dispatch call that a body had been found at Liberty High School. Only a few minutes from the location, he headed there to assist.
As the officer pulled into the drive leading to the school, he was met by school security and then escorted to the back of the building. With their aid, he located Trey’s body approximately fifty to seventy feet off of the bridge area behind the school. Pittenger knew he shouldn’t touch the body but he observed it for signs of life. There were none. His training kicked into gear and he began to cordon off the area with yellow crime-scene tape to preserve the scene for the homicide detectives who were en route.
Although Pittenger was aware that the victim was male, he could not ascertain whether he was an adult or a teenager. There was obvious head trauma. He waited at the scene until the detectives arrived.
In his cross-examination of Officer Pittenger, Pete Schuler took the opportunity to emphasize what the defense perceived as the shortcomings of the investigation. In response to his questioning, the officer testified that although he did not touch Trey, he was close enough to touch him. He admitted that the area surrounding Trey’s body was muddy and that anyone coming into the area would likely leave a footprint. Therefore, he was sure that he had as well. He did not notice if there were other footprints there. Despite the importance of this information due to the prosecutor’s assertion that both Josh Young and his father killed Trey, no one from Homicide had asked Officer Pittenger whether he left footprints or the size shoe that he wore. It was also impossible for Pittenger to know whether any members of school security had approached Trey’s body prior to his arrival. As Pittenger left the stand, the Commonwealth shifted gears by calling the most important person in Trey’s life to testify.
In what was perhaps the most moving testimony of the entire trial, the next witness called to the stand by the Commonwealth was Trey’s father, Terry Zwicker. It was immediately apparent to observers that Terry was completely devastated by the loss of his son. Terry settled into the witness box with a look of pain on his face that conveyed how desperately he was grieving and how much he had loved his son.
Turning his attention to the prosecutor, Terry clutched his white baseball cap in his hands, wringing it slightly. He had endured so much pain already and through his testimony he would be forced to relive the worst day of his life and its aftermath.
Terry began by detailing his relationship with Trey and the close bond that they had shared. He detailed his plans with Trey for the upcoming weekend when they were going to take a fishing trip together. His life was irreparably changed when his son was taken from him via the brutal murder. Every person in the courtroom could feel the anger and devastation that Terry exuded. It was clear that his ultimate goal was attaining justice for his son, whom he portrayed as a kind and thoughtful boy.
Terry described his hate for Josh Gouker and his belief that Josh Young was also involved in the death. He did not think that Trey would have ventured out to the creek bed late at night unless he was meeting someone. He thought that person was Josh Young. After his long and agonizing testimony, he was finally excused from the courtroom.
Next, the prosecution called another law enforcement witness to the stand. Detective Leigh Maroni strode purposefully to the witness box and promptly began to detail the scene of the crime in response to the Commonwealth’s questioning. Perhaps the most important part of her testimony was her description of her interview with Little Josh at the school shortly after the discovery of Trey’s body. The audio of the interview was played for the jury members. They sat upright and alert as the conversation came to life.
Little Josh sounded audibly distraught on the recording. He sounded shocked by the discovery. Trey’s death seemed to have hit him hard. The Commonwealth emphasized one statement that Little Josh made during that interview as proof of his alleged guilt. Little Josh told the detective that he saw Trey after he showered for the evening and described the clothes he was wearing. This statement was in sharp contrast to the statements he gave in later interviews when he asserted that he left Amanda’s house prior to Trey’s shower and that he never saw him after that.
Skeptics wondered how he could know what Trey was wearing unless he met up with him later that night. They also wondered why he told two different stories. Terry Zwicker would say later that he believed Josh was lying, otherwise why would he have told the police two different things?
However, that discrepancy might also be explained by Gouker’s lies to Child Protective Services the entire time he had custody of Little Josh. He knew that Child Protective Services would not approve of Cassi’s home as an appropriate environment for Little Josh, so he told his caseworker that he and Little Josh lived in Amanda’s house, two doors down. In his initial statement, Little Josh claimed to be at Amanda’s later into the evening. Perhaps he was afraid that if he told the detective that he was not at Amanda’s home, she would learn that he was not living there. He may have been worried that custody would be taken from his father and he would be placed back into foster care, perhaps not with his sister and the Walshes.
His grief and shock at the time may also have contributed to his statement. He had heard his father and Amanda speaking about Trey’s attempts to sneak out of the house the evening before and heard them mention what he was wearing when he did so. This image in his mind may have contributed to the statement he made to Detective Maroni in the state of shock he was in immediately after learning that Trey was dead.
Detective Maroni’s testimony lasted quite a while and was important due to the recorded statement she had taken from Little Josh. It was one of the main pieces of evidence that the prosecution felt implicated him. After she left the stand, the Commonwealth turned toward the forensic evidence it had compiled in the case.
Tracy Gutterman was the first witness called to the stand to address information about the crime scene. By the time of the trial, Gutterman had spent the previous six years employed as a crime scene technician for the Louisville Metro Police Department’s Crime Scene Unit. Her regular duties included shooting photos and video of crime scenes along with taking fingerprints and collecting evidence. Any such evidence would be packaged and preserved, then stored in the property room.
In the Trey Zwicker murder investigation, she had recorded a video of the scene which was played back for the jury. She also detailed the items that were collected from the scene of the murder: a pair of black sweatpants found in the grass, discarded cigarette packs and various other items. All items were collected and catalogued. She brought the sealed items to the attention of the jurors and the Judge instructed the jurors that they would be able to view and handle these items later in the jury room while wearing gloves.
Although the testimony regarding the police investigation and the evidence collected at the crime scene were an integral part of the Commonwealth’s case, spectators and jurors alike seemed much more engaged when friends and family members of Trey took the stand as witnesses. One such witness was called to the stand shortly after Gutterman.
Amanda McFarland’s brother strode confidently into the courtroom. He wore a simple white T-shirt layered underneath a blue button-down shirt. A handsome man in his thirties, he sported a shaved head and appeared to be all business as he settled into the witness box.
He stated that he was a former US Marine who had been discharged in 2004. Amanda’s brother and thus Trey’s uncle, he described his distaste for Josh Gouker and his disapproval of his sister’s relationship with him. Because he felt that she was unsafe with Gouker, rather than start a fight with his sister, his visits to her home had become less frequent. In the months prior to Trey’s death, he had
less contact with Amanda and Trey than he was accustomed to.
For that reason, on the evening of May 10, 2011, he decided to let bygones be bygones and stop by the home for a cookout that his sister had planned. As he pulled into the driveway, he noticed Gouker in the front yard, his eyes trained on the vehicle as he adopted a menacing stance, bracing his body and staring down the vehicle. As Amanda’s brother eased the car into park and opened the driver’s door, a look of recognition sprung to Gouker’s eyes as he realized the visitor was his brother-in-law.
Breaking into a smile, he escorted Amanda’s brother into the home where Amanda was busily preparing food in the kitchen for the cookout. The majority of the attendees had congregated in the backyard where the grill was going and Amanda’s brother spent much of the evening playing basketball with guys from the neighborhood and hanging out with Trey.
His sorrow and regret was obvious throughout his testimony. It was apparent that he had replayed the evening in his mind countless times. It was the last time Amanda’s brother saw his nephew Trey and he revealed that when he left he had a fleeting thought of inviting Trey to come with him to the hospital as he had his hand stitched by the emergency room doctors. He had reconsidered before asking, realizing that Trey would probably not enjoy spending hours at the emergency room. It appeared to be a decision that he thought of and regretted often.
At one point Amanda’s brother described a power imbalance between Big Josh and Little Josh. He claimed that while they were playing basketball as a group at the cookout, Little Josh had the chance to block his father’s basketball shot. However, he hesitated and declined to do so. The Commonwealth seemed to think that those actions implied that Little Josh would do anything to help his father. In actuality, the testimony reinforced that Big Josh was a mean man who called the shots. Little Josh might have feared ramifications from his father if he made him look bad. After all, he was just a child and he could not risk Big Josh’s wrath. Gouker had the power to do anything he wanted to Little Josh and this was likely frightening to his son. Amanda’s brother’s testimony was important because it highlighted Trey and the good and thoughtful boy he was. It helped to humanize him to the jury. It also showed how Big Josh ruled the home and his son with an iron fist.
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