Jury hears tape of suspect’s statement to police

Bill Gang

Friday, June 18, 1999 | 11:24 a.m.

A District Court jury that must decide Sikia Smith's fate over the execution slayings of four young men heard the defendant almost casually admit he was part of the deadly plot.

Smith, 19, didn't take the witness stand but his unemotional voice, from a tape-recorded statement he gave to police, was heard by the jury Thursday as part of the prosecution case.

As the tape recording was played, Smith sat quietly in District Judge Joseph Pavlikowski's courtroom.

In the statement, Smith told how he and three other men planned the assault on a home where there was supposed to be about $6,000 in cash and a quantity of drugs, although few drugs and only about $200 was found.

Smith admitted that as the plans were finalized it was understood that everyone in the house would have to be killed.

While he named four conspirators, including himself, only the three men who are alleged to have participated in the fatal invasion have been charged. The fourth, a man Smith said he knew only as "Todd," had directed the raid but was not present.

Police and prosecutors have indicated that the case is not closed and a fourth arrest is still a possibility.

Metro Homicide Detective Thomas Thowsen asked Smith who first brought up the subject of multiple murders and was told it was Todd.

"He said that if we were to go over here and do what we're gonna do, that they would have to be killed because ... the guys knew, you know, where he lived and everything," Smith explained in his statement.

"They knew Donte, too," Smith added, referring to 19-year-old Donte Johnson, who is alleged to have fired single bullets into the heads of the four victims as they lay on the floor.

In his statement, Smith said he, Johnson and 19-year-old Terrell Cochise Young drove to the house on Terra Linda Avenue, near Nellis Boulevard and Tropicana Avenue, and pulled their guns on a young man who was watering the front lawn.

They took him inside where a second man was sitting in a chair, and Johnson held a pistol on them while Young bound them with duct tape. Smith began searching for drugs and cash, the statement said.

Young joined in the search, but Smith said, "We didn't find anything. Red found about two hundred and something dollars and that was it."

Eventually two other men came to the house and they also were laid on the floor and duct tape was wrapped around their wrists and ankles.

Homicide Detective Jim Buczek asked Smith what happened when the unfruitful search was completed and it was time to leave.

He replied that Johnson turned up the stereo "I guess to kill the sound of the gunfire ... and Donte, the victim in the (dining room) he shot, he shot him ... and then he shot the other three victims (in the living room)."

Smith said that none of the four resisted the attack or spoke before they were executed.

Smith said that when the trio returned to Todd's home almost empty-handed and detailed the murders, Todd was angry because the crack cocaine he believed was in the house had not been found.

Thowsen asked if Todd said anything about the murders and Smith replied simply, "No."

If Smith is convicted of first-degree murder for the deaths of the four victims -- Jeffrey Biddle, 19, Tracey Gorringe, 20, Matthew Mowen, 19 and Peter Salamantez, 17 -- the same jury will have to decide if the appropriate sentence is life in prison with or without the possibility of parole or death by lethal injection.

Although Deputy District Attorney Gary Guymon said during opening statements Wednesday that a VCR also was stolen in the robbery and was found at Todd's house with Smith's palm print on it, Smith denied in his statement that anything other than cash was stolen.