Slain woman’s friend relates argument

Erica D. Johnson

Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2003 | 11:10 a.m.

A friend of Kim Gautier told jurors Monday about an argument Gautier had with Timmy Weber the night before her slaying, and prosecutors said it could have been the motive for the killing.

On the first day of testimony before District Judge Joseph Bonaventure, Robin Thornton told jurors that Gautier had visited her the morning of April 4, just hours before Gautier and her 15-year-old son, Anthony, were killed.

Thornton, Gautier's friend of four years, said Weber was upset because a boy had called Gautier's daughter on the phone. Weber was angry because the boy was black, Thornton testified.

"He went crazy," Thornton said. "He cursed the kid out on the phone and proceeded to call (Gautier's daughter) names like slut and racial things."

Weber, 28, faces multiple felony charges, including two counts of murder in connection with the deaths of Gautier, 38, and her son. Prosecutors have said they will seek the death penalty for Weber.

Weber also faces several other charges for the alleged sexual assault of Gautier's 14-year-old daughter.

But Deputy Public Defender Will Ewing said while the facts of the case were "compelling and disturbing," jurors should not judge the evidence based on their emotions alone.

Ewing urged jurors to consider motive when evaluating the case.

"(Weber) says, 'I wasn't there. I didn't do it. Why would I hurt people I loved like my family?' " Ewing said.

Prosecutors implied that the answer lies in Thornton's testimony. Thornton said Gautier told her she was going to allow her daughter to start dating boys, despite Weber's protests.

"Kim was mad," Thornton testified. "She told (Weber), 'You're not her boyfriend. You're my boyfriend.' She said he needed to start acting like a father figure."

Under cross-examination by Deputy Public Defender Joseph Abood, Thornton admitted she lied to police when she told them Gautier had come over just to talk.

Gautier had come to Thornton's home to bring Thornton a bottle of iodine crystals, Thornton said. Iodine crystals are used to make methamphetamine.

Thornton paid Gautier $75 for the crystals with the intention of selling the crystals to someone else, she testified.

Thornton said she and Gautier used methamphetamine during the visit, but Thornton said the illegal drug did not affect her ability to remember details of the conversation.

"I can still think clear," she testified. "(Methamphetamine) doesn't impair your thinking ability."

Police discovered Gautier and her son's bodies in separate rooms at Gautier's home at 700 First St. Weber lived in the house with Gautier.

Gautier was found in a plastic bin in a bedroom closet. Anthony's body was found in another bedroom with his face, wrists and legs duct-taped and dumbbells on his back.

Weber's fingerprints were found on the duct tape on Anthony's ankle and his palm print was found on a roll of trash bags and on the bunk bed where the alleged rape took place, Chief Deputy District Attorney Robert Daskas said during his opening statement.

Kathryn Webb, a clerk at a Walgreen's drugstore near Gautier's home, testified that Weber had purchased three rolls of duct tape, and nothing else, from the store on the day of the killings.

"That's definitely the guy," Webb said, pointing to Weber in the courtroom. "I remember almost everybody that I've ever seen in Walgreen's."

Webb said she saw Weber's picture on television the night of the incident.

"I said to myself, 'That looks like the man I sold the tape to,' " she said. "I remembered the eyes. The way they just bored into you when they looked at you."

In addition, DNA evidence links Weber to the sexual assault of the teen girl, Daskas said.

"You'll see plenty of direct and circumstantial evidence that one person, the same person, the defendant, is responsible for this rape and these two murders," Daskas said.