Judge to decide if pants can be used as evidence in slayings trial

Kim Smith

Friday, March 3, 2000 | 11:17 a.m.

District Judge Jeffrey Sobel is giving prosecutors one more chance to persuade him that he shouldn't toss out evidence gathered against Donte Johnson in a quadruple slaying 19 months ago.

Johnson is one of three men charged in the August 1998 deaths of Matthew Mowen, 19, Jeffrey Biddle, 19, Tracey Gorringe, 20, and Peter Talamantez, 17.

According to authorities, Johnson, 19, Terrell Young, 20, and Sikia Smith, 19, robbed the men's Terra Linda Avenue home on Aug. 14, 1998, after hearing that there was supposed to be $6,000 in cash and drugs in the home.

Smith and Young were convicted and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, and now it's Johnson's turn to see if he can avoid a conviction and the death penalty. His trial is set for June 5.

Johnson's attorneys, Dayvid Figler and Joe Sciscento, are attempting to convince Sobel to throw out a pair of blood-splattered pants that were seized by Metro Police officers a few days after the killing.

The attorneys claim that Johnson was renting the room from where the pants were seized and therefore, Johnson's friend, the home's owner, had no legal right to give police permission to search the room.

Prosecutors claim the blood on the pants came from one of the victims, and the pants have been tied to Johnson through DNA. The pants are being retested by defense experts.

Figler said Sobel expressed interest in the defense's arguments during a Thursday hearing but said he wanted to give prosecutors Gary Guymon and Robert Daskas two weeks to file an additional motion arguing their position.

Should Sobel throw out the pants as evidence, Figler said the state's case would rest squarely on the shoulders of Charla Severs, a girlfriend of Johnson, who at one time implicated herself in the murders.

Severs was arrested late last year on a material-witness warrant after disappearing for a period of time, reportedly because she feared for her life.

She ended up giving a videotaped deposition in October in the event she disappears again.

Severs testified that a few days before the killings Mowen came to the house she shared with Johnson, Young and three other men looking for crack cocaine. After Mowen left, one of her housemates told them Mowen had several thousand dollars stashed at his house, Severs said.

On the night of Aug. 14, 1998, she said, Johnson, Smith and Young left the house for about six hours heavily armed and when they returned Johnson told her four men at Mowen's house had been "taken out" because Talamentez had been "disrespecting" him.

During Thursday's hearing, Sciscento pointed out that Severs at one time had said Johnson was wearing shorts the night of the murders and yet she testified that day he was wearing black pants.

"The district attorney wants you to say Donte Johnson was wearing pants doesn't he?" Sciscento asked.

"Yes, because he was wearing black pants," Severs insisted.

Figler said Sobel is supposed to rule on the pants issue and several other motions at a May hearing.