Friend of victims describes crime scene

Bill Gang

Thursday, June 17, 1999 | 11:23 a.m.

A friend of four young men who were bound with duct tape and executed with bullets to the head told the jury at Sikia Smith's murder trial of discovering the grisly scene after the Aug. 14 massacre.

Justin Perkins, his voice cracking with emotion, told of opening the door of his friends' home more than half a day after the shooting to see their bodies lying in pools of blood. Perkins said he called their names and vainly looked for signs of life.

He recalled for the jury in District Judge Joseph Pavlikowski's courtroom how the men's puppies scampered outside, leaving red tracks with their blood-soaked feet.

When paramedics arrived Perkins said they entered the home on Terra Linda Avenue, near Nellis Boulevard and Tropicana Avenue, but quickly retreated.

Perkins said he demanded to know why they weren't helping the four victims -- Jeffrey Biddle, 19, Tracey Gorringe, 20, Matthew Mowen, 19, and Peter Talamantez, 17 -- but was told simply, "They're dead."

Perkins was the first witness at the trial of the first of three defendants charged in the murders. All are facing the possibility of the death penalty, although prosecutors have said that only 19-year-old Donte Johnson fired the fatal bullets.

Deputy District Attorney Gary Guymon told the jury during opening statements that Smith, Johnson and 19-year-old Terrell Cochise Young were equally responsible for the execution-style slayings that were the planned conclusion to a well-orchestrated robbery.

Guymon said the plan clicked along with near military precision, with Young holding a gun on the men while Johnson bound them with tape and Smith ransacked the home looking for $6,000 in cash and a cache of drugs that they believed were there.

But the promise of "an easy score" based on the boasting of one of the eventual victims wasn't fulfilled. The killers left with about $240, a VCR and perhaps a video game system, Guymon said.

Smith's palm print was found on the VCR that was recovered when Metro Police conducted a raid a few days later on the home on Everman Drive, where Johnson was living.

Guymon told jurors a satchel holding guns and duct tape was recovered from the home, along with a pair of black pants with splatters of blood belonging to one of the victims.

The prosecution's case against Smith, 19, centers around the confession he gave to police after his September arrest, detailing the conspiracy and the murders.

The defense in the case, according to attorney Tony Sgro, is that Smith is an "idiot."

Not an "idiot" in the common vernacular, Sgro noted, but in the clinical psychological sense.

He described Smith as a "mentally retarded -- foolish follower" manipulated by Johnson, whom he described as "evil," into joining the team on the deadly quest.

Sgro told the jury that Smith's father was never around because he had been incarcerated for murder and his mother was a crack addict who turned over the raising of the defendant to his grandmother.

"He is weak and feeble-minded and can't distinguish right from wrong," Sgro said. "And if he does, he can't resist."

Guymon countered that while Smith "may be mentally retarded, he knew right from wrong."

Metro Homicide Detective Thomas Thowsen testified that when he interviewed Smith and helped obtain the confession he saw "nothing to indicate he was retarded."

Deputy District Attorney Robert Daskas said he expects the state to rest its case today after the jury listens to Smith's confession.

Guymon said that in the confession Smith admitted he and the others didn't wear masks because "they each knew the ultimate outcome -- that they were going to kill these kids."