Samuel at first denied brother’s killing
At the start of his police interrogation, 14-year-old Eldon Gale Samuel III admitted shooting his father in the stomach the night of March 24, 2014, after an altercation in their Coeur d’Alene house. But then he blamed his father for attacking his 13-year-old brother Jonathan, who was hiding under his bed. “I can still hear his screaming,” Samuel, referring to his autistic brother, told two Coeur d’Alene Police detectives. He told them his wounded father had crawled to Jonathan’s bedroom, shot the boy with a shotgun and attacked him with a machete.
On Wednesday, Samuel’s defense attorney told the jury it was Samuel who killed both his father and brother in the tiny emergency housing unit owned by St. Vincent de Paul North Idaho. Samuel is charged with first-degree murder in his brother’s death and second-degree murder in his father’s death. Now 16, he is being tried in 1st District Court as an adult.
The jury Thursday watched the first part of the police interview, which is over four hours long. The rest of the video will be shown in court Friday.
When a detective asked Samuel if he knew why he was at the police station in the interview room with them, the boy replied, “The murder thing.”
He explained he had shot his father because his father was ranting about zombies, had ordered Samuel to get out of the house, and then struck him in the chest area when he refused to leave. “He hit me again and I shot him,” Samuel told the detectives. He also told them he shot his father three more times in the left cheek and left temple that night.
One of the interviewers was Detective Jason Wilhelm, the school resource officer at Lakes Magnet Middle School where Samuel was in eight grade and had gotten into trouble for bring a pair of handcuffs to school. Wilhelm reminded Samuel they had spoken about that incident at school.
Scott Maben/SR
