Trial begins in killing linked to Beatles poster

A murder trial began Wednesday against a woman charged with instructing two men to kill her former boyfriend over a Beatles poster she coveted.

Kathryn B. Kelly, 31, is charged with first-degree murder in connection with the slaying of 45-year-old Robert “Bud” Johnson, whose body was pulled out of the Spokane River on March 18, 2006, at Boulder Beach.

Investigators say Robert A. Entel, 19, and Donald L. Smiley-Lyle, 18, killed Johnson at the request of Kelly. She had previously been romantically involved with Johnson, who gave her the framed Beatles poster, which had also been signed by a celebrity.

Within weeks of the gift, Johnson wanted the poster back to sell on eBay but Kelly refused, according to court records. Johnson and a friend broke into Kelly’s Spokane Valley residence and stole the poster back, prompting Kelly to ask Entel and Smiley-Lyle to kill Johnson, according to court records.

“Why was Bud Johnson murdered? The evidence will point back to this woman, Kathryn Kelly,” Deputy Prosecutor Steve Garvin told the nine-man, three-woman jury. “She had these two men kill him.”

Entel, who is Kelly’s first cousin, has agreed to plead guilty to first-degree murder and receive a 25-year sentence in exchange for testifying against Kelly, Garvin said.

The trial got a late start Wednesday when Assistant Public Defender Richard Sanger asked Superior Court Judge Kathleen O’Connor for a delay to challenge expected testimony from a man who finally agreed to a prosecution interview on Tuesday night.

In exchange for dismissing three felony methamphetamine-related charges, William Odell Kemme has agreed to testify that he saw Kelly hand Entel a key to Johnson’s apartment to commit the murder.

But Kelly has given Sanger “a number of names of witnesses who can contradict what (Kemme) said,” Sanger told the judge. Kemme “has been going around saying Ms. Kelly is innocent until he found himself sitting in jail with three felony charges against him.”

Sanger asked O’Connor for more time to counter the prosecution “dragging witnesses off the scum level of the street to offer testimony against my client.”

O’Connor agreed to ask Garvin to wait until next week to call Kemme to the witness stand. That should give Sanger’s investigators time to track down potential witnesses.

“I’m not prepared to strike (Kemme) as a witness,” O’Connor said. “It’s not the state’s fault that he surfaced so late.”

The case began in early 2006. Kelly had been homeless, and Johnson agreed to let her stay at his apartment, at 1723 W. Maxwell Ave. They had a brief relationship during which Johnson gave Kelly the Beatles poster, according to court records.

Kelly then moved in with Entel at 14008 E. Springfield in Spokane Valley. Around March 5, that home was burglarized, and the only item stolen was the Beatles poster, Kelly reported to the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office.

She told a deputy that she believed Johnson stole the poster. And Johnson’s friend, Roy “Butch” Glidewell, later admitted to Kelly that he helped Johnson steal the poster, according to court records.

Within days, Johnson was reported missing, and detectives began to search for Entel and Smylie-Lyle based largely on information provided to them by Kelly.

The Oregon State Police located Entel and Smylie-Lyle outside of Salem on March 18 and interrogated them about Johnson. At that time, Entel confessed, saying he and Smylie-Lyle killed Johnson, according to court records.

“Entel told OSP Detective Michael Oja that Kathryn Kelly wanted Bud Johnson dead because of an ongoing dispute over the framed poster,” Spokane police Detective Kip Hollenbeck wrote in his report. “Kelly provided Entel with a key to Johnson’s apartment.”

Entel then described how he and Smylie-Lyle dressed in black, military-type clothing, including berets, and went to Johnson’s apartment sometime around March 12, the report says. They used the key from Kelly to go in the front door and heard Johnson playing video games, then they acted like police officers and blinded Johnson with a flashlight, according to court records.

“Entel placed Johnson in a choke hold and told Johnson, ‘This is for Kelly,’ ” Hollenbeck wrote.

They gagged Johnson with a red bandanna and bound his hands with a white zip tie, then cut a cord off Johnson’s computer and strangled him with it, Hollenbeck wrote. Smylie-Lyle then started banging Johnson’s head on the floor, Hollenbeck wrote.

“Smylie-Lyle commented that Johnson’s head banging on the floor sounded like a coconut,” according to Hollenbeck’s report.

The two men then loaded Johnson into their car and drove him to Boulder Beach, where they rolled him off a cliff into the water, the report says.

The same day Entel confessed to Oregon authorities on March 18, dive team members acted on a tip and found Johnson’s body in about 20 feet of water. He had a red bandanna tied loosely around his neck and his hands were bound by a white zip tie.

Spokane County Medical Examiner Dr. Sally Aiken determined Johnson’s cause of death was asphyxia, but she could not tell whether he was strangled or drowned, Garvin said.

In his opening statement, Sanger told the jury that his client told investigators everything she knew. She called to report Johnson missing and initially told detectives about Entel’s and Smylie-Lyle’s involvement.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is a case where actions speak louder than words,” said Sanger, who described the witnesses as an “unlikely and incredible group of characters.”

He said there is no question that Entel and Smylie-Lyle killed Johnson. “What’s at issue,” Sanger said, “is whether or not Ms. Kelly had anything to do with it.”