Confession tape plays
as murder trial opensFriends shot friends in the pursuit
of drugs, the prosecutor says
HILO >> John McGovern wrapped a .22-caliber rifle in a blanket, and he and another man hitchhiked to some friends' house to kill them and steal drugs in May 2002, said a deputy Hawaii County prosecutor yesterday.
Deputy Prosecutor Jack Matsukawa said McGovern and Kyle Zengy Thurston Hill "planned to do it sober ... so they wouldn't make any mistakes" at the home in a rural Puna subdivision.
It was decided that McGovern would shoot Cassidy Matthew Toole and Hill would shoot Wesley Alan Matheson, Matsukawa said.
McGovern, 20, is on trial in Circuit Court on a charge of first-degree murder (involving the murder of two or more people), two counts of second-degree murder, auto theft and a firearms violation. The trial began Monday.
McGovern's alleged accomplice, Hill, 19, is expected to testify as a government witness after pleading guilty to second-degree murder in the execution-style shootings of Matheson and Toole.
McGovern's attorney, Keith Shigetomi, admitted his client was involved in the killings. However, he said the defendant shot only one of the victims, and only because he feared for his own life.
Yesterday the prosecution spent much of the day screening lengthy sections of Detective Richard Miyamoto's questioning of McGovern on June 6, 2002, which culminated in the defendant confessing to the killings.
"The whole truth? ... Kyle (Hill) shot Wesley (Matheson), I shot Cassidy (Toole)," McGovern told Miyamoto on videotape. Hill "reloaded the gun, he handed it to me. And I turned and I shot Cas on the side of his head. Right here."
McGovern then told Miyamoto that he went outside the house. He saw Matheson's still-moving body lying where Hill had gunned him down.
"Wes was already shot. ... Like I saw, I swear to God he was alive," he told Miyamoto.
"So I reloaded the gun and shot Wes in the back of the head."
During most of yesterday's videotaped confession, McGovern sat expressionless in the courtroom, his back to the TV screen. He occasionally leaned over to whisper to his attorney.
