Trial to begin for alleged triggerman

Kim Smith

Friday, June 2, 2000 | 11:13 a.m.

In August 1998, four young Las Vegas men were forced to the floor of their home, bound with duct tape and shot in the head.

On Monday, the jury selection process is expected to start for the last of the three men accused of the crime -- the alleged triggerman, Donte Johnson.

If convicted, Johnson, 21, could face the death penalty. His co-defendants, Sikia Smith, 19, and Terrell Young, 20, managed to avoid the ultimate punishment, instead getting life in prison without the possibility of parole after being convicted by separate juries.

Smith and Young both fingered Johnson as the man who pulled the trigger, but with their appeals pending and their testimony unlikely, the key witness in the case is expected to be Johnson's girlfriend, Charla Severs.

Severs is so important, in fact, that prosecutors jailed her until they could videotape her deposition in the event she would be unavailable for Johnson's trial.

Prior to her deposition, Severs disappeared for several weeks, reportedly because she feared for her life.

During that deposition, Severs testified that a few days before the slayings, Matthew Mowen, 19, came to the house where she, Johnson, Young and three other men hung out looking for crack cocaine.

After Mowen left, one of the men told the others that Mowen had $10,000 stashed at his house on Terra Linda Avenue near Nellis Boulevard and Tropicana Avenue.

Severs testified that on the night of Aug. 13, 1998, Johnson, Young and Smith left the house for about six hours carrying a duffel bag she said normally carried a revolver, an automatic pistol and a rifle.

Johnson told her that he was going to get some money, Severs said.

Johnson woke her up about 3 a.m. the next day and she learned of Mowen's death when Johnson told her to watch the TV news. Johnson told her the four were "taken out" because Mowen's friend Peter Talamantez, 17, had been "disrespecting" him.

Also killed were Jeffrey Biddle, 19, and Tracey Gorringe, 20.

On Aug. 17, 1998, a Nevada Highway Patrol officer stopped Johnson while he was driving a stolen vehicle. Inside the car was a .30-caliber rifle and 45 rounds of ammunition.

The next day, police searched the Everman Street house where Johnson had been staying and found a .22-caliber Ruger rifle.

When Smith and Young were arrested in September 1998, they told police Johnson was the triggerman and they had used the recovered weapons as they stood look-out.

Smith told police they only found $200 and a small quantity of drugs in the house.

The .380-caliber semi-automatic weapon believed to be the murder weapon has never been found.

Inside the Everman Street house, police also found a pair of pants with one of the victims' blood on them. The pants were linked to Johnson through semen found on the zipper.

On Thursday, defense attorneys Dayvid Figler and Joe Sciscento tried unsuccessfully to persuade District Judge Jeffrey Sobel to disallow the recovered weapons as evidence. They had earlier failed in their attempts to also get the pants thrown out.

The attorneys argued the pants and the gun were seized illegally because Johnson did not give police permission to search the bedroom where he had been staying. Prosecutors Gary Guymon and Robert Daskas said Johnson was not living there and police had properly gotten permission from the home's resident.

Figler and Sciscento also argued the guns should not be admitted as evidence because neither one is the murder weapon. The prosecutors said they were used during the kidnapping and robbery of the four young men, however.

The defense attorneys grilled Severs during her videotaped deposition and are expected to do so again during the trial.

Severs once told police Johnson was wearing shorts on the night of the murder, but later said he was wearing the black jeans with the victim's blood on them. She has also said Johnson wasn't home that night and she was forced to go to the Terra Linda home with Smith and Young.

Johnson told KVBC Channel 3 in a jailhouse interview that he has never been to the Terra Linda home, even though his saliva was found on a cigarette butt found at the scene.

If convicted, court records indicate that prosecutors plan to call witnesses to testify about four separate juvenile acts committed by Johnson. The nature of those acts are not yet public record, but Guymon and Daskas list as witnesses officers with the California Department of Parole and Probation and Los Angeles Police Department.

After the murder trial, Johnson faces trial in the attempted murder and battery of Derrick Simpson.

Police allege that Johnson shot Simpson in the face and back on May 4, 1998, in a drug dispute.

Simpson testified during a preliminary hearing that Johnson was his crack cocaine supplier and they got into an argument when Johnson refused to sell him drugs.

Johnson shot him multiple times, leaving him paralyzed from the neck down, Simpson said. He spent three months in and out of a coma.

The murder trial is expected to last at least two weeks.