By Margot Sanger-Katz
Monitor staff
September 23, 2009
TRENT SPINER / Pool photo
Walter Hutchinson
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A Rockingham County jury is considering whether a brutal attack can constitute a murder if it takes more than a decade for the inflicted injuries to result in death.
Prosecutors argue that Walter Hutchinson murdered Kimberly Ernest during a prolonged assault in 1991, even though Ernest lived in a near-vegetative state for 14 years before she died from complications.
Hutchinson's lawyers say that Ernest, while disabled by her injuries, was killed by an intervening illness, and Hutchinson isn't responsible.
"Is there a connection between Walter and his brutal acts and her death?" public defender Caroline Smith asked in an opening statement yesterday. "Absolutely. But that does not answer the question. The question is did he cause, directly and substantially, her death."
Hutchinson has already been convicted of attempted murder, after acknowledging that he beat and choked his ex-girlfriend at his Epping home.
Ernest died in 2005, and prosecutors brought new charges, alleging that Hutchinson is guilty of first- or second-degree murder for his violent attack. In the state's opening statement, Assistant Attorney General Lucy Carrillo told jurors that Ernest's injuries were essentially terminal and that the victim died from predictable complications.
"There was no other cause of death," Carrillo said. "She didn't die of cancer. She didn't die of any other disease. There was no other cause. She died as a direct result of the defendant's attack."
Hutchinson's lawyers had already raised legal objections to the prosecution. They argued before the state Supreme Court that the new charges violate Hutchinson's constitutional rights because they amount to a retrying of the same crime. At the time of his indictment on the murder charge, Hutchinson had been scheduled for release after serving 15 years of a 15- to 30-year sentence for attempted murder. The high court ruled against Hutchinson, saying that Ernest's death made a second prosecution permissible.
The murder trial will focus largely on medical testimony about the nature of Ernest's disability and the cascade of events that ultimately caused her death. The details of the attack are virtually undisputed by the defense. In lengthy testimony during his previous trial, Hutchinson described how, enraged, he beat, tied, chased and choked Ernest.
The central question laid out by the lawyers yesterday is whether Ernest's death was the predictable consequence of the attack, or whether she was medically stable before succumbing to a new health crisis.
Hutchinson's lawyers are also disputing the state's contention that Hutchinson planned to kill Ernest. According to Carrillo's opening statement, Hutchinson told several friends that he hoped to rape and murder Ernest in retaliation for alleged infidelity during their relationship.
One of those friends testified yesterday. Michael Miller told jurors how Hutchinson vented anger in the days before the assault.
"He said that he basically was so angry with her that he would like to tie her up to the bed, and rape her, and kill her, and bury her in the swamp," said Miller, a friend of Hutchinson's who lived down the street. Miller testified about how he visited the house the day of the attack and saw Ernest lying in Hutchinson's yard, bruised and gasping for air.
Miller said he was shocked.
"I just thought it was someone who was angry with someone," he said. "I didn't think he was the kind of person who would pull it off."
Smith told jurors that Hutchinson never planned to harm Ernest, but he became overwhelmed by emotion during an encounter the day of the attack. Smith said that friends had been telling Hutchinson that Ernest had betrayed him and was spreading vicious rumors about him.
"What he did was acting in pure emotion, grief, anger, anguish and rage, and that emotion fueled a frenzy that he just could not stop," Smith said.
In her opening statement, Carrillo pointed to objects found in Hutchinson's room as evidence that the murder was premeditated. She said that investigators found lengths of rope, telephone wire and a roll of duct tape. During the attack, she said, Hutchinson tied Ernest to the bed. But she escaped and climbed out of the bedroom window.
Hutchinson followed her outside, where he strangled her until she stopped struggling, Carrillo said.
"Only because Kimberly escaped out the window, did he have to change his plan," Carrillo said.
Several friends testified that they'd stopped by the house that afternoon, apparently during the attack. They said Hutchinson appeared angry and ordered them to leave. They did.
Family members knew that Ernest was going to Hutchinson's home that afternoon and became concerned when she didn't meet them afterwards. During tearful testimony, Ernest's sister, Bonnie Grenier, described what she saw when she and her husband eventually approached the house.
"There was an ambulance," Grenier said. "There was cops everywhere, and I just lost it. I started screaming. I got out of the car - I didn't even wait to park. I just got out, and I fell to the ground. And then I saw my mother, and they were bringing my sister out on a stretcher. It looked like she was dead."
The first days after the attack were devastating, Grenier said. But she said that she'd been able to maintain a relationship with her sister, despite her profound disabilities. According to Grenier, Ernest never spoke or walked again. Over the years, she learned to indicate yes and no answers by blinking her eyes, she regained some control over one arm, and she would laugh at jokes. Grenier said.
"We had fun," she said. "It was hard, but it was good."
During frequent visits, Grenier would tell her sister stories and celebrate holidays. Family members brought Ernest specially altered clothes so she wasn't dressed in hospital gowns. Nurses braided Ernest's hair and did her makeup every morning, Grenier said.
Then, after every visit, Grenier would cry in her car because she couldn't bring her sister home, she said.
Testimony will resume today.
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