LAKEPORT — With the last of the evidence in the murder trial of a Nevada man presented on Tuesday morning, the judge told the jury he expects the case to be handed over to them by Wednesday.
Prosecutor Richard Hinchcliff called his last two witnesses to the stand Tuesday morning in the murder trial of 46-year-old Reno resident Paul Smiraglia, accused of the 2002 murder of Diedre Coleman, 43, of Upper Lake.
Not long after Hinchcliff rested, defense attorney Doug Rhoades called his only witness and rested his case as well.
The first of Hinchcliff”s final witnesses ? he has called 28 witnesses in 10 days of testimony ? was Todd Kaylor, a parole/probation officer for a Nevada State Prison inmate who testified last week that Smiraglia had confided in him about Coleman”s torture and murder.
Kaylor said he was skeptical of the inmate”s information at first. But when the inmate “actually took the time to write a letter” to him, Kaylor decided to look into it.
The letter said the crime occurred in Clearlake, and included Smiraglia”s first name and a misspelled version of the name of witness Sharmon Hawley, who testified earlier in the trial she was present in her home the night Coleman was murdered.
Kaylor called the Clearlake Police Department in November 2004, where he was quickly passed along to Detective Carl Stein, who had been investigating the case at that time for a year and a half. Kaylor quickly realized, “I had something pretty serious here.”
Stein traveled to Nevada to meet Kaylor and interview the inmate.
Kaylor said he left Stein to the interview and didn”t sit in. “I didn”t want to be involved in all those discussions and have to testify about it,” a statement which resulted in laughter throughout the courtroom and even from Judge Arthur Mann himself.
Hinchcliff”s final witness was Karen Tucker, Smiraglia”s former girlfriend.
Tucker, a slender, dark-eyed woman, recounted four tumultuous, methamphetamine-fueled years of living with Smiraglia, whom she met at a Reno Salvation Army in 1997.
Their relationship, according to Tucker”s testimony, turned violent within their first year together ? so violent, she said, that the nurses in the local hospital emergency room knew her on a first-name basis.
She didn”t, however, call police because she was afraid of Smiraglia, who sometimes ripped out the phone lines to keep her from attempting to call.
“They say the ?fear of God”. I had the fear of Paul,” she said.
She described the “continuous” violence Smiraglia inflicted on her, once leaving her with black eyes for a solid 30 days. He would casually hit her and stand back grinning, Tucker said. In one case he broke five bones in her hand; in three other cases, she wound up with broken or fractured ribs. On a few occasions he even drove her to the hospital and left her there, Tucker said.
“Sometimes I was injured so bad I couldn”t move,” she said.
Tucker said Smiraglia went back to prison between 1999 and 2000, but when he got out he tracked her down. “I tried to leave numerous times,” she said, but she she she couldn”t get away.
Once during an argument in early 2002 she said Smiraglia drove her out into the desert outside of Reno and told her he would bury her there if she tried to leave. He threatened to kill her many times, Tucker said, and she believed he would do it.
“He was never sorry,” after hitting her, Tucker said, as she began to wipe away tears.
Their relationship ended suddenly in about June 2002, when Smiraglia forced her to join him on a trip to Napa County. Ordering her to stay on the floorboards of the small pickup they were traveling in, Smiraglia drove to meet with Coleman and David Goforth, who Tucker said were supposed to help finance Smiraglia”s meth manufacturing.
The four met up at a location along Highway 80, Tucker said. Further into the trip, while in a motel parking lot, Tucker and Smiraglia began to argue. The confrontation ended suddenly when Smiraglia got into the pickup and drove away, leaving Tucker stranded. She said she managed to get back to Reno and never saw Smiraglia again until she pointed him out in court.
Rhoades questioned Tucker closely about the fact that she had not filed police reports over Smiraglia”s abuse. He asked her if Smiraglia had ever used a weapon to threaten her; Tucker said she didn”t recall that happening.
When Hinchcliff requestioned Tucker, he asked if she had seen Smiraglia make meth; Tucker said yes and admitted to helping him do it. She mentioned his use of muriatic acid in the manufacturing process; Smiraglia is alleged to have injected muriatic (or hydrochloric) acid into Coleman”s ear before allegedly hitting her in the head with a hammer.
When Tucker stepped down, Hinchcliff rested his case.
Next up was Rhoades, who called only one witness ? Carl Stein.
Stein was on the stand earlier as a prosecution witness. On Tuesday, Stein sat in the witness chair, his right hand resting on a black three-ring binder nearly 5 inches thick ? which contains the hundreds of pages of narrative, witness statements and evidence he has compiled in his three years on the case.
Rhoades” questioning, which lasted less than 30 minutes, probed details of Stein”s interview of the Nevada prison inmate who testified last week against Smiraglia; particularly, Rhoades asked Stein if he had promised the sometimes reluctant prisoner help in getting out of prison if he testified. Stein said no.
Another topic Rhoades examined was Sharmon Hawley”s previous testimony and some of its conflicts with her statements to Stein in earlier interviews. On several occasions Hawley had denied knowing of what happened to Coleman, a fact Rhoades noted in his questions to Stein; Hawley even admitted that she made up stories about Coleman leaving the area with another man.
Shortly before 11 a.m., Rhoades rested his case. Judge Mann told the jury that the evidentiary portion of the trial had concluded and that the trial would recess for the rest of the day while he, Hinchcliff and Rhoades went over jury instructions.
Mann said final arguments will be presented beginning at 9 a.m. today, Wednesday, with the case to be handed over to the jury afterward.
Contact Elizabeth Larson at elarson@record-bee.com.
