Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Jurors hear recorded police interviews with suspect
James Jones II didn't testify at his murder trial, but his mother took the witness stand Monday.
RADFORD -- Jurors heard Monday from the man charged with capital murder in the July 2006 death of Ken Henry.
James Jones II didn't testify, but Commonwealth's Attorney Chris Rehak played audio and video recordings of police interviews with him. Jones was interviewed days after Henry was fatally shot in the Davis Street apartment where Jones' fiancee, Kelly McKenzie Brubeck, lived.
In one interview, Jones said he was upstairs asleep when the shooting happened. Asked if he knew the victim, Jones said he never saw the man who was shot.
He told police he heard a scream, then a shot. He said when he walked downstairs, Brubeck ran out the back door of the apartment and he followed her.
Asked in another interview if the incident was drug-related, Jones answered, "No, sir. Not that I know, sir."
Brubeck has testified that she and Jones set up a fake drug deal to lure 39-year-old Henry to the apartment, where they planned to rob him. She has said Jones shot Henry twice.
Brubeck is charged with second-degree murder in connection with Henry's death. Her trial date has not been set.
At one point in an interview, an officer can be heard telling Jones that a person's "dying declaration" is as good as testimony from the witness stand. The officer asked Jones who he thought Henry would have named as the shooter.
Jones accused the officer of tapping him on the shoulder and looking at him "all wide-eyed" as if to imply that Henry named Jones.
If anyone said he did it, Jones told the officer, "that's bull----. I ain't killed nobody."
Asked why he didn't "take the heat" for Brubeck, he said, "Because I didn't do it."
Brubeck first confessed to shooting Henry, but later said she lied to protect Jones.
Jurors also heard Monday from family members of both Jones and Brubeck.
Jones' mother, Gwendolyn Anthony, testified very briefly, saying only that Jones called her the night of July 5, 2006, and said there had been a shooting and he needed a ride. She said that she told him she didn't have a license and couldn't help.
After her testimony, Anthony sat behind the defense table where Jones sits with his five attorneys.
Brubeck's older sister, Kacey Brubeck, began crying as soon as she took the witness stand.
Asked if she was upset, Kacey Brubeck said, "I'm devastated and my heart is broken. They have destroyed a life." She said her heart goes out to Henry's family.
She testified that Kelly Brubeck told her Jones shot Henry. She said her sister told her Henry was robbing them and there was a scuffle.
That varied from the version Kelly Brubeck has told jurors.
Kacey Brubeck admitted that she had never said to police what she said in court Monday.
"No, because I wasn't there. I don't know," she said.
Several times during her testimony, Brubeck tried to elaborate on her answers. Each time, Circuit Court Judge Joey Showalter tapped on his bench and told her to just answer the questions.
Michael Trump, Brubeck's uncle, testified that he stayed at his niece's apartment the night of July 3, 2006 -- two days before Henry was shot. He said Jones told him he was broke and needed to find a way to make some money.
"Plus he asked me for Ken Henry's phone number," Trump testified as Jones shook his head from side to side.
Trump said he and Jones knew Henry as "Cadillac Man" or "James" and that those are the names Jones used when asking for the number.
Trump said Jones picked him up from a motel the day after the shooting and they went back to the apartment, where Trump cleaned the blood from the kitchen floor. He said items, including a baby's high chair, were turned over in the kitchen "like there had been a struggle."
On that visit, Trump said, Jones had money and drugs -- two things he said he didn't have two days earlier.






