Novato, CA: I am not a murderer': Mitchell says he fought off victim's attackers

By Gary Klien
Marin Independent Journal


Posted: 07/05/2011 11:26:19 PM PDT

Novato murder suspect James Mitchell, testifying in his own defense Tuesday, freely admitted that he did many things to Danielle Keller during their relationship — battered her, pushed her, ignored her court protective orders, and occasionally advised her to "shut up" or "get slapped."

But on the evening Keller was beaten to death with a softball bat, Mitchell said he was attacked by the same unidentified men who apparently killed his ex-girlfriend.

"You admit you are a batterer," said Mitchell's defense attorney, Stuart Hanlon. "Are you a murderer?"

"No, I am not a murderer," Mitchell said.

Mitchell testified for approximately four hours Tuesday, brashly parrying questions from both Hanlon


Claudia Stevens, the mother of homicide victim Danielle Keller, is comforted outside court Tuesday by Erica Menezes, one of Keller's closest friends. (IJ photo/Frankie Frost)
— whom he tried to fire shortly before the trial — and Deputy District Attorney Charles Cacciatore, whom Mitchell frequently addressed by his nickname, "Chuck."
In his first public statements since Keller's death on July 12, 2009, Mitchell offered his own version of events.

Mitchell said he drove to the Diablo Court apartment where Keller and their baby lived, parked the car up the street and heard Keller scream for help. Hastening into the yard, he was attacked by two men who were running from the scene, he said.

Mitchell said he fought the two men, one of whom was carrying his 1-year-old daughter, and was struck in the back with a bat. Mitchell — a former Marine who said he was dismissed from the corps

for disciplinary reasons — said one of the attackers fled and the other ran off with the baby.
The 220-pound defendant then outran the child abductor, neutralized him with a punch to the face and a kick to the shin, and rescued the child, according to his account.

He described one assailant as a man in a white shirt with "very sky blue eyes," a buzz haircut, bad breath and "a little girth."

The other assailant was a leaner, taller man with a black shirt, a buzz cut and "hairy arms," Mitchell said.

Then Mitchell drove off with the baby. Hanlon, on direct examination, asked why he didn't call police to report the incident.

Mitchell said he heard a neighbor calling for 911 before he left with the child, and he knew he was violating a court order by coming to Keller's apartment for their daughter's first birthday.

"I said, 'I'm not going to be here when the cops showed up,'" said Mitchell, who has admitted referring to police as Nazis and "fascist pigs."

Mitchell drove up Highway 101 and eventually headed east on Interstate 80. He continued to Auburn, where he met with longtime Mitchell family lawyer Terence Hallinan, the former district attorney of San Francisco.

After seeing Hallinan, Mitchell said, he headed back west with plans to give the baby to family and turn himself in with Hallinan. He was arrested in Citrus Heights with an empty gas tank, a few dollars in cash and a frozen credit card.

Cacciatore, on cross examination, asked Mitchell whether he ever saw Keller at the crime scene. Mitchell said no. Cacciatore then asked how Keller's blood got splattered on Mitchell's pants.

"I don't ... I can't answer that," Mitchell said.

"How'd your fingerprint get on the bat?" Cacciatore asked later.

Mitchell said it must have happened during the struggle with the assailant.

Mitchell — whose father, the late strip-club and porn magnate Jim Mitchell, was convicted of killing his brother Artie in 1991 — is charged with murder, domestic violence, kidnapping, child abduction, child endangerment, stalking and a special allegation of murder during the commission of a kidnapping.

Authorities alleged that Mitchell drove from his home in Pittsburg to Keller's apartment in Novato, repeatedly clubbed Keller in the head with a softball bat, and ran off with the infant under his arm. The trial began June 21 before Judge Kelly Simmons.

Mitchell's appearance Tuesday followed testimony by a blood expert, a Novato police officer, one of Keller's neighbors, and a college softball coach, who testified for the defense about bats.

The defense also called Keller's mother, Claudia Stevens, who lived with the 29-year-old victim and the baby. Hanlon — possibly keeping his options open for a heat-of-passion manslaughter defense — asked whether the bat that killed Keller was in the residence at the time of the homicide.

Stevens said it was not.

The defense is expected to rest Wednesday.