Jurors Quickly Convict Man Of Ax Murder

Jurors needed only three hours Thursday to convict a Coeur d’Alene man of killing his elderly landlord with an ax.

Gerald A. Barcella embraced chief public defender John Adams for several minutes after the seven-woman, five-man jury found him guilty of first-degree murder.

Barcella faces at least life in prison.

A decision has not been made on whether to seek the death penalty, said chief deputy prosecutor Lansing Haynes.

Prosecutors said during the trial that Barcella was enraged over being evicted when he hit 69-year-old William Smith several times with a pulaski. The firefighters’ tool with a hoe on one side and an ax blade on the other was found under a bed next to Smith’s body.

Barcella’s former girlfriend, his drinking buddy and a former cellmate testified during the two-week trial that he confessed to killing Smith.

Defense attorneys argued those witnesses had reputations for lying and received deals from prosecutors in exchange for their testimony. No one actually saw Barcella hit Smith and no blood was found on his clothes, Adams said.

“Don’t be afraid you’re going to let a guilty man go free,” Adams told the jury. “Be afraid that you’re going to take an innocent man’s life away.”

Bob and Tina Healey, who considered Smith a member of the family, found little comfort in the jury’s swift decision Thursday night.

“It didn’t matter to me if he was guilty or not guilty,” Tina Healey said. “We already lost Bill.”

At the time of his murder, Smith was fed up with his Harmony House apartment neighbors and longed to move out, Bob Healey said.

“He wouldn’t cause anybody any trouble,” said Bob Donovan, who met Smith in 1960. “He stayed out of everybody’s way.”

Prosecutors said Barcella was one of the tenants that frequently challenged Smith, who supplemented his income as a stained-glass artist by managing the apartment building.

In his closing arguments, Haynes detailed Barcella’s relationship with Smith. The two had several verbal run-ins, and Barcella threatened the landlord in the hours before the murder. Haynes also emphasized claims Barcella allegedly made following Smith’s murder in April 1995.

“The defendant told several people that he hit that old man on the head with an ax,” Haynes said. “(He said), ‘I hit him again to make sure he was dead. He made me mad.”’

Haynes also argued that Ricki Bobo, Barcella’s former girlfriend, said she saw blood on Barcella’s clothes following Smith’s murder. Police did not find the blood because Bobo washed the clothes, Haynes said.

Adams told jurors Bobo never saw blood on Barcella’s clothes.

“I’ll eat this suit if she said either in the police report or on the witness stand that she saw blood on his clothes,” Adams said.

, DataTimes