Testimony ends in Frederick trial; closing arguments Monday

CHESAPEAKE

Jurors in the Ryan Frederick murder trial on Friday watched a videotaped interview the defendant gave to police after the shooting that left Chesapeake Detective Jarrod Shivers dead.

It was the first time Frederick had seen the video, too.

In a police interrogation room, Frederick told detectives he "just started shooting," when he saw someone ram his front door.

"Did you hear them announce they were the police?" one detective asked Frederick.

"Never," he said in the video. "I didn't look what I was shooting at. I told you that three or five times."

The detectives appeared polite and courteous, giving Frederick water and a trash can to vomit in.

When detectives left him alone for a few minutes, he curled himself up into a ball and cried, the video showed.

By the end of the day Friday, the jury had heard all the evidence in the case and will return on Monday afternoon for closing arguments and deliberations.

The jury will be left to decide whether Frederick, 29, is guilty of capital murder and should spend the rest of his life in prison for shooting and killing Shivers during a drug raid at Frederick's house on Jan. 17, 2008. They might, though, be allowed to consider lesser homicide charges.

Police raided Frederick's home that night looking for a marijuana-growing operation that informant Steven Rene Wright had told them about.

The jury will be left to sift inconsistencies among the defendant, informants and the police before deciding Frederick's fate.

In court, as he had testified earlier, Frederick admitted that he lied to the detectives that night about his marijuana-growing operation and failed to tell them that some plants had been stolen days earlier. Frederick also said he saw a face and then a hand reach through the hole in his front door.

He said it was then that he fired his gun. Detectives disputed that scenario, saying they never did that and backed away once Shivers was shot. Prosecutors latched onto that difference as a chief inconsistency between Frederick and the police.

"If you lied about something like marijuana, wouldn't you lie about the shooting?" James Willett, one of the special prosecutors from Prince William County, asked Frederick after the video.

"I didn't lie," Frederick answered.

The most crucial inconsistency, according to the lawyers involved, is whether Frederick told people he was ready to shoot police that night or, as he said, he had no idea police were at his door before he fired.

"This case, in the long run, is going to bear down on credibility," Richard Conway, one of the special prosecutors, told the judge Circuit Court Judge Marjorie A.T. Arrington on Friday.

The jury will have to decide, Conway said, whether the police are "conspiratorial liars" or whether "the defendant's credibility should be more scrutinized."

Conway recalled witness Aaron Curlee to highlight another inconsistency. Curlee testified that Frederick called Wright multiple times after Frederick's garage was burglarized three days before the raid. Frederick accused Wright of taking the plants. Wright at the time was the police informant who provided the information that led to the search warrant.

Curlee said he heard Frederick accuse Wright of the break-in and threatened him, his family and the police.

When Wright replied that he was going to report the threats to police, Frederick responded, " 'I have something for them, too,' " Curlee said on the stand Friday.

Wright, however, in earlier testimony never said that Frederick made such a threat toward police.

Broccoletti, in turn, countered with a phone record showing that the phone in question received one call that night and not multiple calls as Curlee had said.

Also Friday, one of the jailhouse informants, Jamal Skeeter, was recalled to the witness stand, where he engaged in a fiery question-and-answer session with defense attorney James Broccoletti.

Broccoletti introduced about 30 letters Skeeter wrote to various authorities offering his assistance in homicides, police shootings and even the Michael Vick dogfighting case.

On the witness stand, Skeeter didn't deny that he's a "professional witness," but his credibility was called into question again as he denied writing some of the letters, even though acknowledging they were in his handwriting with his name on the envelope. He explained that by saying other jail inmates write letters in his name.

"But that's not you?" defense attorney Broccoletti asked him.

"No," he answered.

Skeeter was a key prosecution witness earlier. He said Frederick told him he saw the police outside his home before he shot. Frederick said he never spoke to Skeeter before.

Skeeter is serving a sentence of nearly 15 years on several drug and grand larceny convictions in Portsmouth and Suffolk, according to the Virginia Department of Corrections.

When Skeeter entered the courtroom, he initially refused to answer any questions, saying his safety was in jeopardy. He also tried to order the removal of the media. The judge refused and ordered him to testify.

Broccoletti introduced a letter Skeeter wrote to one of his lawyers about the Vick case.

"You ever told them you knew about the Michael Vick case?" Broccoletti asked.

"Yea," Skeeter replied.

"Did they take you up on it?" the lawyer asked.

"Nah," Skeeter answered.

Portsmouth prosecutors have said they stopped using Skeeter as a witness because he had become unreliable and untrustworthy.

Tim McGlone, (757) 446-2343, tim.mcglone@pilotonline.com