Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2002 | 9:37 a.m.
In between his sobs and sniffles, Brett Jones insisted Tuesday he wasn't angry when his 67-year-old landlady ordered him out of her house last fall.
He was scared, Jones said, afraid that being homeless would get him sent to prison on a probation violation.
How his fear turned into a murderous rage, he isn't exactly sure.
"I got on my knees saying 'Please, please don't do this to me. I don't want to go to prison,' " Jones sobbed. "She got mad at me and ran up and pinched my chest and scratched my face, and I freaked out, flipped."
All he remembers after that, Jones said, is a "snapshot" of him hitting Shirley Rogers "a couple" of times and choking her.
Tuesday was the fifth day in Jones' murder trial.
While his attorneys hope to show Jones, 25, is guilty only of second-degree murder or involuntary manslaughter in Rogers' Sept. 21, 2001, death, prosecutors contend the slaying was nothing short of first-degree murder.
If convicted of first-degree murder, he could receive the death penalty.
Chief Deputy District Attorneys David Wall and Robert Daskas said Jones beat and strangled Rogers to death when she decided to kick him out just weeks after taking him in.
Without Rogers, the prosecutors contend, Jones would soon find himself without a home, without a vehicle and without his construction job. Being a convicted robber, he would also have faced a possible prison sentence for violating his probation.
Prosecutors also cited a house in disarray and a phone pulled from the wall as evidence of what took place. They also showed photos of Rogers' bloody hands and said Jones washed his own hands in an effort to cover his tracks, proof he knew what he was doing.
Rogers' body was found Sept. 22, 2001, by neighbors who had heard her arguing with Jones the previous night.
Jones told jurors that after getting off work Sept. 21, he went to a local bar and had at least six rum and Coke doubles. Rogers kept calling him on his cell phone, ordering him to come home.
During the third call, Jones said, Rogers threatened to report her truck, which he was driving, stolen. Despite being "lit" he drove home.
Jones said Rogers was waiting for him in the driveway and they began arguing. The argument continued into the living room. He disputed Wall's suggestion that he attacked Rogers as soon as they entered the door.
Jones said he couldn't explain how Rogers' cigarette pack, glasses and lighter ended up in the entrance hallway. He also couldn't explain the broken cigarette laying there as well.
As for a phone being pulled out of the wall, Jones said he must have done that after Rogers died for fear of being discovered. He adamantly denied Rogers tried to call for help.
All he wanted to do, Jones said, was convince Rogers to let him stay. If he was unable to do that, he said, he wanted to collect his tools and clothes.
"I can always start over," Jones said. "I wasn't angry, hurt maybe. I wasn't angry until she (slapped and scratched me)."
Jones described Rogers as a "godsend" for providing him a home and truck. Her help allowed him to escape from a homeless shelter and gave him a chance to get back on his feet.
He said he didn't even mind so much her seducing him when he was drunk a week after he moved in. He kept on sleeping with her, he said, rather than face going back to the shelter.
Jones insisted he doesn't remember much from that fatal night, including whether or not he heard police officers knocking on Rogers' door.
Jones said he also he doesn't remember loading up Rogers' truck with some of her belongings or driving through Arizona on his way to Mexico or getting her truck stuck in the sand just a few feet away from the border.
Jones said he has long suffered from paranoid delusions because of an addiction to methamphetamine. That night, he said, he wasn't afraid of being arrested by police, only of being hurt by unknown others who might be chasing him.
Had the police stopped him, Jones said, he would have given himself up. He never would have used the .357 magnum he stole from Rogers' house, he said.
"I just wanted to start over again," Jones said of his fleeing the country.
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