Mistrial Declared In Case Against Man Accused Of Hiring Hitman To Kill Pregnant Girlfriend

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com)  —  A mistrial was declared Wednesday in the case of a man accused of hiring a gang member to fatally shoot his girlfriend after she refused to have an abortion.

The 12 jurors told the judge they were hopelessly deadlocked, with the foreperson reporting the split at 6-6.

During the course of the trial, three jurors were replaced on two separate occasions. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Ronald S. Coen noted the panel had been considering the case against Derek Paul Smyer since Aug. 2.

Smyer, 35, was arrested and charged with murder a decade after the Sept. 25, 2001, killings of then 27-year-old Crystal Taylor and her unborn son.

The alleged gunman, Skyler Jefferson Moore, 34, is still awaiting trial.

Moore is serving a life prison sentence without the possibility of parole for another 2001 killing, and prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against him.

If convicted, Smyer could face life in prison without the possibility of parole.

In closing arguments late last month, Deputy D.A. Danette Meyers told the jury, "It was really the baby that Smyer wanted dead."

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The prosecutor told jurors that Smyer "set this crime in motion" when he told Moore, a reputed gang member he met in a local park, to "get rid of her."

Moore agreed to kill Taylor in exchange for Smyer's support of his gang, the deputy district attorney alleged.

"That young woman, 5 1/2 months pregnant, didn't know what hit her," Meyers told jurors. "Her only crime was ... to say, `I'm gonna have this baby' and she paid for it with her life."

The prosecutor pointed to what she said was a pattern by Smyer, detailing attacks on Traci Williamson, the mother of his two daughters.

In April 1998, Williamson, then seven to eight months pregnant, was attacked by a man with a knife in an alley. Both she and the baby survived.

When Williamson became pregnant again, just months after Taylor was killed, she was again attacked in her third trimester, this time by a man who knocked her to the ground and punched her in the stomach 20-30 times, Meyer
said. The baby and Williamson survived.

"Traci was lucky. Crystal wasn't so lucky," Meyers said.

Defense attorney Calvin Schneider III told jurors that the killings were "absolutely tragic," but "it will become compounded if you convict someone who is not involved."

Schneider argued that another gunman with a more personal motive murdered Taylor, showing the jury panel an artist's sketch of the suspect alongside a photo of Moore.

"It's not the same guy," Smyer's attorney said.

Jurors were shown video of a Nov. 6, 2011, interview with Moore in which he admitted to Taylor's murder. Moore said Smyer told him Taylor was "trying to trap him."

In an earlier interview, Moore had emphatically denied killing the 27-year-old.

Smyer's attorney noted that a witness heard a five-to-seven-minute argument just before the shooting, one of several questions Schneider said remained unanswered by the D.A.

Even if Moore was the shooter, Smyer had no connection to him, Schneider argued.

Smyer's lawyer suggested that the first attack on Williamson may have been an attempted robbery. He expressed skepticism about the alleged second attack, saying Williamson did not report it to the police for 11 days.

Schneider also said Smyer took his role as a father seriously. He showed jurors photos of his client holding his first newborn just weeks after the prosecution alleges he arranged to have Williamson attacked.