Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Bartender Provides Woods With Alibi He Says Defendant At Tavern At Time Of Killings

In the final day of testimony in the Dwayne Woods double-murder trial, a for mer bartender gave the defendant an alibi.

John Robertson testified Thursday that he was working at the downtown Lamp Post Tavern on April 27, 1996, when he saw Woods seated at a table.

“I looked at him, and I can remember pretty well because there were not many people there at the time,” Robertson said in Spokane County Superior Court.

The testimony is crucial to the defense, because Robertson claims to have seen Woods between 9:45 and 11:15 a.m. - about the same time prosecution witnesses saw him inside or near a home where two women were beaten to death.

Woods, 27, is accused of beating 22-year-old Telisha Shaver and 18-year-old Jade Moore to death with a baseball bat. He is also charged with the attempted murder of Venus Shaver, 18, who was beaten in the same attack but survived.

He faces a possible death penalty if convicted of aggravated murder.

Closing arguments will start this morning, with the nine-woman, three-man jury likely to start deliberations this afternoon.

Compared with five days of testimony by prosecution witnesses, defense attorneys spent less than six hours presenting their case.

The key prosecution witnesses have been Telisha’s sister, Venus, and her mother, Sherry Shaver.

Venus Shaver testified she drove Woods to a Spokane Valley trailer home the night of the attacks. After she refused to have sex with him, she said he slammed her against a closet. She recalled nothing else until regaining consciousness days later in a hospital.

Sherry Shaver arrived at the home early on April 27 and said she saw Woods run outside and disappear.

Prosecutors say Woods, who had dated Venus Shaver, hit her in the head with a bat and left her for dead. They say he then raped Moore, and when Telisha Shaver arrived unexpectedly, he killed them both to conceal the crimes.

Detectives also testified that Moore, before she died, said the attacks were committed by a black man she knew only as “Dwayne.” The victims are white.

Woods insists he is innocent and wasn’t with the women that night.

His best hope for acquittal was Robertson’s testimony.

Robertson, who says he no longer works because of a brain tumor, told jurors he saw Woods and his parents arrive at the Lamp Post Tavern the morning of April 27 and spend about an hour seated at a table. He never saw Woods before, he said.

During cross-examination, Prosecutor Jim Sweetser challenged Robertson’s account, suggesting he either was confused on dates or saw someone in the tavern who resembled Woods.

Robertson told investigators months ago that he saw Woods the same morning he made a 911 call.

In his first account to investigators, Robertson said he made the call to assist a middle-aged female patron.

But records show the 911 call made from the tavern on April 27 was to help a man.

On Thursday, Robertson said he confused the calls.

“They were so close together in time. I’m sure it was when the man had the problem,” he said.

The defense Thursday also called their only expert witness - University of Washington psychology professor Geoffrey Loftus.

Loftus, who has written extensively on human memory, described his research into how humans can produce flawed or false memories of key or stressful experiences.

Defense attorneys could not ask Loftus to comment directly on statements made by prosecution witnesses, including Sherry Shaver, Venus Shaver or two men who said they saw Woods near the Valley trailer within minutes of the attacks.

Instead, Loftus only answered general questions. He testified that white people have difficulty correctly identifying persons of other races, one of the themes defense attorney Jay Ames will use in his closing argument.

“The key issue we want to present is that eyewitness testimony cannot always be relied upon to be accurate,” Ames said afterward.

, DataTimes