Kevin Boot Testifies, And Cries Alleged Killer Maintains He Didn’t Shoot Felicia Reese; Closing Arguments Today

The teenager portrayed by prosecutors as a remorseless, calculating killer wept on the witness stand Friday as he recalled kidnapping Felicia Reese from a downtown hotel parking lot.

Kevin Boot moved away from the microphone and sobbed when his attorney asked why he got into Reese’s car with his cousin, Jerry Boot.

“Because I was scared,” Kevin Boot said finally.

His testimony in Spokane County Superior Court wrapped up the weeklong murder trial Friday. Closing arguments will begin today.

The Boot cousins are each charged with aggravated first-degree murder. They admit forcing Reese, 22, into her car Dec. 27, 1994, driving to Minnehaha Park and robbing her of $43. Each blames the other for shooting her in the face three times.

Defense attorney Richard Fasy has maintained throughout the trial that Kevin Boot drove the car while his cousin held the .380-caliber gun in the passenger seat and gave directions. Reese was in the back seat.

Fasy had his client reveal details about what happened the night Reese was killed: how she handed Kevin Boot the car keys so he could drive, what radio station was playing, how Reese told the cousins God had a future for them.

“Did you shoot and kill Felicia Reese?” Fasy asked.

“No, I didn’t,” Kevin Boot said.

“Did Jerry Boot shoot and kill Felicia Reese?”

“Yes, he did.”

“Why?”

“I have no idea,” he said softly.

Kevin Boot was raised by his grandparents in Spokane and attended Catholic schools, playing sports and winning several athletic awards. He was first exposed to gangs when he was 12, but didn’t join one until a few years later, he said.

When he was expelled from school in the seventh grade, Kevin Boot never went back.

“I was hanging out with a group of people and just didn’t think school was very important,” he said.

Before long, he was spending more time away from his grandparents’ house and started doing drugs. He had been high on methamphetamine for days when Reese was killed, he said.

His testimony about that night held up under relentless cross-examination by Prosecutor Jim Sweetser, who pointed out that it was the defendant’s fifth version of what really happened.

Kevin Boot disputed earlier testimony from friends who said he talked about shooting a girl in the face shortly after Reese was killed. He admitted helping Jerry Boot rob a pizza deliveryman in the days before the murder, and also to pointing a gun at two girls “to see how they’d react.”

But Kevin Boot, a self-proclaimed Crips gang member, denied he and his cousin ever argued over whose gang was the toughest. Having a gun didn’t make him feel powerful, he said, and killing someone didn’t bring respect in his gang.

Prosecutors have contended murder was the only way the Boot cousins could prove themselves to their friends and each other.

“You both counted one, two, three and then you turned around and blasted her, didn’t you?” Sweetser asked Kevin Boot.

“No I didn’t,” he said.

“You talked about killing her, didn’t you?”

“No I didn’t.”

“Isn’t it true you were the leader?” Sweetser asked.

“No it isn’t.”

When Sweetser was finished, Fasy rested his case. The sequestered jurors will begin deliberations today, after hearing closing arguments.

If convicted of aggravated murder, Kevin Boot faces life imprisonment without parole. Jurors could also find him guilty of first-degree murder, which carries a sentencing range of 20 to 30 years.

Jerry Boot’s trial is scheduled to start next month.

, DataTimes