In a last-minute move the defense lawyer herself wasn't sure she would make, attorney Karen Muir sent former Nittany Lion LaVon Chisley to the stand yesterday to tell the court he did not kill his friend, Penn State senior Langston Carraway.
Not a single juror looked away as Chisley calmly recounted the night of Saturday, June 3, 2006, the last time 26-year-old Carraway was seen alive. Contradicting the testimony of the very woman he claimed to have slept with, he said he spent that night at the apartment of Jade Burges-Farrell, a friend and former lover.
Muir, previously questioning Chisley loudly across the courtroom, lowered her voice.
"LaVon," she asked, "did you kill your friend, Langston Carraway?"
"No," he replied firmly.
Later, as he and his guards prepared to leave the courtroom and return to the Centre County Correctional Facility, Tamieka Bujam, the mother of his second child, told him she wished he could leave with his family.
"Friday," he said. The jury is expected to render a verdict on his first- and third-degree murder charges today.
In his testimony, he explained the presence of the black heavy duty gloves sighted twice in his windbreaker, once before the murder and once after. The pair, which matched the description of one glove found at the crime scene containing both Chisley's and Carraway's DNA, was one of several he had bought earlier to use with his two dogs, Chisley said.
It's possible, he added, that he had left the glove at Carraway's Patton Township apartment during one of the numerous times he brought his dogs to visit.
As for his supposed debts, the defendant said he never felt any financial pressure: He admitted making $400 to $1,000 a week selling marijuana, having started dealing to pay for knee surgery correcting a December 2005 football injury.
Although prosecution testimony had established earlier that he owed tens of thousands of dollars to various parties and had only $8.42 in his Penn State Federal Credit Union bank account at the time of the murder, Chisley said many of his debts had been dissolved voluntarily by creditors.
Finally, he testified that he was aware of several locations Carraway routinely stashed marijuana and money in his apartment -- both of which police had found untouched at the crime scene. Prosecutors have said Chisley murdered Carraway for the thousands of dollars in drugs and money hidden in the apartment.
During a break in the proceedings, Chisley embraced his mother, Sharon Cannon, and sat down to talk with her for several minutes. After her son's testimony concluded, Cannon said she thought he made a good decision in facing the jury.
"He wasn't worried," she said. "He said he was prepared because he didn't kill his friend."
Having rested his case earlier in the day, Centre County District Attorney Michael Madeira wasted no time in questioning the 23-year-old's story.
First examining Chisley's account of his whereabouts the evening of the murder, Madeira pointed out that Burges-Farrell's own testimony challenges Chisley's claim of spending the night with her. She said that although Chisley spent some of the evening with her, selling her a quantity of marijuana, he did not stay overnight.
Madeira asked Chisley if Burges-Farrell was lying when she made those statements, and the defendant, maintaining his composure throughout the cross-examination, said she was.
Why then, Madeira asked, did Chisley originally tell police he had spent the night of the murder with friend Kerry Onaka and not Burges-Farrell as he had testified?
Chisley said the difference lies in their separate definition of "night." While investigating officer Thomas Snyder thought he was asking Chisley where he had slept the night of the murder, the defendant said he misunderstood and instead told him who he had hung out with that evening.
Although Chisley said he did spend a good portion of the night with Onaka, he maintained he had slept at Burges-Farrell's residence.
He said he specifically told Snyder where he had slept when interviewed, affirming when questioned by Madeira that the police report was incorrect.
The district attorney then turned his attention to the Patton Township Police Department's initial phone interview with Chisley. Chisley had at first told Snyder that he left for Baltimore on Saturday, a full day before the murder -- later indicating that he had, in fact, left on Sunday, Madeira said. Chisley said he had gotten the dates mixed up.
Madeira called into question two of Chisley's phone calls to Onaka made later in June 2006 -- recorded without his knowledge by Patton Township police -- during which he supposedly asked her to tell authorities he had spent the night of the murder at her apartment.
First, Chisley said, nowhere in the call did he mention the night of the murder. Additionally, he contends he was only letting her know police might be calling to verify his story, reminding her they had spent much of the evening together.
Chisley's trial enters its final scheduled day at 8:30 this morning.
