Guilty verdict in murder trial

Gay pickup killing retried

Friday, Aug. 15, 2008

It has been almost six years since Jeffrey Edward Allen’s first trial for murdering John Bradley Butler, 32, by stabbing him 19 times.

Allen’s second trial in the murder lasted three days this week and included his testimony from the previous trial, as well as police testimony. The jury was asked to decide whether Allen committed felony murder, that is whether he killed Butler while stealing his car. Felony murder requires that a killing occur in the commission of another crime.

On Wednesday, attorneys on both sides made their closing arguments and left the jury to deliberate into the night and next morning.

‘‘Each of you have to decide in your conscience if there’s a reasonable doubt,” said Allen’s attorney, Sheila Sullivan. The defense attorney argued the prosecution had not proven her client committed felony murder, saying Allen wasn’t planning on taking the car until after he killed Butler. She also disputed that Allen’s statements to police had been given freely and said other testimony implicating Allen in felony murder were unreliable.

According to Charles County Assistant State’s Attorney Kenneth Talley, it is Allen’s testimony that is unreliable.

‘‘The only thing the defendant does more than lie is stab Mr. Butler. Nineteen times,” said Talley in his closing argument. ‘‘Robbery occurred the second the defendant took Mr. Butler’s keys. ... He was announcing his intention to Mr. Butler and the whole world. He was saying, ‘I’m gonna take this car by any means necessary.’ And the defendant shows us. You have the pictures of Mr. Butler’s torn, naked body,” Talley said.

Butler’s twin sister and mother attended the trial, sitting in the back row and crying at times over the nearly 7-year-old murder.

Butler, of Port Tobacco, and two friends first encountered Allen in the late hours of Oct. 23, 2001, in Washington, D.C., at a known meeting place for gay men called ‘‘The Stroll,” Talley said at the beginning of the trial. One of Butler’s friends, a drag queen named Cinnamon Lewis, yelled out of the passenger side window to Allen as he was walking and invited him into their car. Allen, 6 feet 2 inches tall, squeezed into the back of the white coupe, behind Butler’s seat.

‘‘Nothing about sex was said, but it was in the aura,” Allen would later testify.

Along the way to Charles County, Butler picked up one more man, and the group then headed to Lewis’ house in La Plata, stopping at a gas station to buy fuel and cigarettes, Allen testified. At Lewis’ house, Butler dropped everyone off except for Allen, who moved to the front passenger seat.

The only account of the hours after the two left Lewis’ house was from Allen, a narrative the prosecutors encouraged jurors to consider critically.

The testimony Allen gave in his previous trial was read aloud to the jury on Wednesday.

Allen said he had ended up at ‘‘The Stroll” as he wandered around Washington, D.C. Allen said he had two homosexual experiences before that night, and testified it was fair to say he liked men sexually.

His girlfriend had turned him away from her door earlier, refusing to let him in because he had been drinking and taking drugs, and he had missed the 9 p.m. deadline for getting into a shelter.

After Butler picked Allen up, they drove to his home in Port Tobacco, which Allen described as ‘‘a shack on a hill.” In other court testimony, it was described as a two-room home made of cinder blocks, according to a Court of Special Appeals opinion written by Judge Ellen L. Hollander.

Allen testified he sat in the living room of the home watching television while Butler smoked something that Allen thought was cocaine outside. After Butler came back inside, the two had consensual sex and fell asleep, according to Allen’s court testimony.

The next morning, Allen testified he woke up at around 9 a.m. and was ready to leave, but Butler wouldn’t get up. ‘‘I wasn’t in any rage about it,” Allen testified. ‘‘I was take-a-deep-breath, angry. ... No one really likes being ignored.”

According to his testimony, Allen saw Butler’s car keys on the stove and shook them, saying, ‘‘I will drive out of this [expletive] myself.” He told the court he was not thinking of stealing the car, but was only trying to get Butler out of bed. ‘‘If I had intended on taking his car, I wouldn’t have told him that was what I was going to do,” Allen testified.

Butler then got up and began walking toward the kitchen wearing a blanket with his arm held up in a menacing way, Allen told the court. Allen said that, fearing for his life, he grabbed a knife from the kitchen and stabbed Butler while pushing him backward. The two fell over, and in the struggle, Allen said he stabbed Butler several more times. According to the testimony read in court, Allen told police that before he died, Butler called out for his mother and said, ‘‘No, no. Stop, stop.”

Allen said he drove away in Butler’s car until he crashed into a ditch. Wearing no shirt and covered in blood, Allen flagged down a passerby, who drove him to Ironsides Market on Port Tobacco Road to call police.

According to the Court of Special Appeals opinion, the passerby, Walter Carter, testified in the earlier trial that Allen told him ‘‘two guys had picked him up and brought him to some house in Charles County. ... And that he had to fight his way out ’cause they was gay, and he didn’t go that way.” Talley pointed out Carter’s account of Allen’s story was different from Allen’s testimony.

‘‘The only thing consistent is his inconsistency,” said Talley in his closing argument. ‘‘But that is a nice, polite term. ... They are lies.”

Police said when they went to Butler’s home, it was covered in blood, according to the opinion. They found Butler on a couch with stab wounds to his chest, neck and thigh, according to the opinion.

Allen was convicted of felony murder, second-degree murder and armed robbery.

The Maryland Court of Special Appeals and Court of Appeals reversed the felony murder conviction, identifying a problem with the jury instructions, and sent the case back to Charles County Circuit Court for a second trial.

Butler’s twin sister, Joan Short, said the reopened trial has been extremely painful for her family.

‘‘We just buried our father, and we had to come back to this again,” she said. ‘‘[Allen] did the crime, he should have to do the time.”

Short said Butler was her ‘‘sweetest brother,” a man who was like a father to her sons and could finish her sentences. His dream was to become a school bus driver because he loved kids, she said.

Allen is scheduled for sentencing Oct. 8.