NH murder suspect wants to bar evidence, photos
Lawyers for a man accused of masterminding a violent home invasion asked a judge Thursday to limit the number of photographs prosecutors can show of the woman who was hacked to death and her 11-year-old daughter who survived.
Prosecutors argued that they will need two dozen photos just to depict all the machete and knife wounds inflicted on the woman, Kimberly Cates, and her daughter, Jaimie.
"This is not a case where a victim was shot once or stabbed once," Assistant Attorney General Jeffery Strelzin said. "Kim suffered approximately 32 wounds and Jaimie 18 wounds - 50 in all. These wounds are literally covering the victims head to toe, front to back and on their sides."
Lawyers for the defendant, 18-year-old Steven Spader, said they were concerned about the number of close-up photographs and suggested the state could show the extent of the wounds in four photos taken from farther away.
"To be honest, it isn't any particular photo," defense attorney Andrew Winters told Hillsborough Superior Court Judge Gillian Abramson. "They're equally graphic."
Strelzin countered, "It's the nature of the crime that has been committed that creates the graphic evidence." He told Abramson there are "far more gruesome pictures" among the more than 600 taken of the wounds, but the state decided not to use those.
While Winters was at the defense table rifling through copies of the photographs the state wants to use, Spader stared at the pictures intently, without blinking or showing a hint of expression. He occasionally tilted his head to look from a different angle.
The charges against Spader and co-defendant Christopher Gribble include first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and attempted murder. Prosecutors say they wielded the machete and knife used in the attacks inside the Cates' Mont Vernon home.
Three other men have pleaded guilty to conspiracy and other charges and are expected to testify against Spader and Gribble. Spader's trial is scheduled to start Oct. 25.
Abramson did not rule on the photographs or on the other issues raised during the three-hour hearing, including whether jurors will hear evidence that the five men formed a "brotherhood" dubbed the Disciples of Destruction.
Prosecutors said Spader characterized the attacks as "initiation" to Disciples of Destruction in a message he wrote to a fellow inmate after the crimes.
They also argued that jurors should be able to hear about the hundreds of text messages sent back and forth among the five that show the how the conspiracy to kill escalated in the weeks before the attacks. Investigators have 5,000 pages of text messages connected to the case, and the defense wants most of them kept from the jury.
"They show the machinations the defendant and his co-conspirators were going through to make preparations," Assistant Attorney General Lucy Carrillo said.
Among the messages is one Gribble sent to his girlfriend at about 2 a.m. on Sept. 27 in which he states, "The dark side of me will run things. Me and Steve have plans."
The home invasion took place a week later, on Oct. 4, 2009.
Gribble and Spader had agreed they would break into the house and that if anyone was home they would kill them for fun, Gribble told investigators, according court documents.
Authorities say four of the men, led by Spader and Gribble, shut off electricity to the home, broke in and lit their way with an iPod.
Cates, a nurse, and her daughter were sleeping in the home's master bedroom. The men attacked the two, searched the house for valuables and left thinking they had killed both mother and daughter, authorities said.
Kimberly Cates' husband, David, was traveling on business at the time.
