Jury Begins Deliberating Beating Case Prosecution Points Out Man’s Confession, But Public Defender Discounts Its Validity

Prosecutors reminded jurors before they began deliberating Henry Luke’s case Tuesday that among the evidence they had to consider is his confession and the discovery of his gloves at the scene.

Luke, 39, is charged with attempted first-degree murder by torture and burglary in the brutal attack on Dorothy Kjera, 83, last December. Luke faces up to half a life term in prison - about 15 years - if convicted.

The seven-woman, five-man jury was not able to reach a verdict late Tuesday after eight hours of deliberation. Deliberations will continue today.

Key to the prosecution’s case is a videotaped confession Luke gave to detectives, plus a pair of work gloves found at the scene with the name “Luke” printed on them.

But public defender John Adams argued that Luke mistakenly confessed to beating Kjera after detectives painted a picture of what they thought he had done.

“Nobody told him anything,” said Rick Baughman, deputy prosecuting attorney. “He confessed to specifics that he couldn’t have known” unless he was the assailant.

Prosecutors allege Luke came to Kjera’s door last Dec. 3 under the guise of shoveling snow for her but really intended to rape and rob her.

Richard Nielsen later found his mother-in-law bloody, beaten and half-naked. Kjera’s head was gashed open, and her cheek, jaw and nose were broken. She had been beaten so badly that one of her eyes had come out of its socket.

“This guy came in, commenced to whaling on her, throwing her around the room, and frankly, beat the living crap out of her,” Baughman said. “He left her for dead - that’s what he said.”

Pictures - 104 of them - taken at Kjera’s house and shown to jurors reveal furniture in her usually tidy living room tossed about. Blood was splattered on the chairs, ceiling, drapes and walls. Broken glass was everywhere.

A lamp, a crystal candlestick holder and a broken candy dish lid Kjera was beaten with were among the mess. Luke’s gloves also were found stacked neatly on a footstool, prosecutors said.

“You’ve got the man’s calling card,” Baughman said. “You’ve got his confession. You’ve got everything.”

Adams did not dispute that Kjera had been beaten, only that Luke had done it. He argued that police had rushed to judgment against Luke and hastily had ruled out a handyman Kjera initially had pointed to as her attacker.

“I got a good look at him,” Adams said Kjera had told police. “It was him. It was his voice.”

The handyman was arrested and questioned but later was released after friends and relatives accounted for his whereabouts when the crime was committed. But Adams said police should have tested the man’s clothes for blood before clearing him as a suspect.

“That’s not good police work,” the defender said. “That’s not good government. That’s slanted, and you shouldn’t stand for it.”

Adams also told jurors that police did not find blood on Luke’s clothes, boots or the car he slept in the night Kjera was beaten. Luke, a man who a Boise clinical psychologist testified was borderline retarded, did not know what he was doing when he confessed, the defender said.

“He didn’t do this,” Adams said. “He wouldn’t be the first mentally retarded man to say he did something he did not do.”

However, a former cellmate at the Kootenai County Jail testified during the six-day trial that Luke had repeated the confession to him.

“The defendant told his cellmate he put the make on her and she wasn’t going for it,” Baughman said. “That upset him.”

, DataTimes