Puna shooter awaits
jury’s decision
HILO >> Murder suspect John McGovern admitted on the witness stand to shooting two men in a rural area south of Hilo on May 6, 2002.
In a plea agreement, a second suspect, Kyle Hill, also admitted shooting the victims and testified against McGovern.
A Hilo jury must now decide whether the shots fired by McGovern constitute first-degree murder (two deaths in one event), second-degree murder (two separate deaths) or manslaughter.
McGovern's attorney, Keith Shigetomi, acknowledged to jurors during closing arguments in the trial yesterday that the case may seem cut and dried.
"If all you do is look at the surface, all you see is two people shot, two people confessed. (The verdict) must be guilty. It must be murder," Shigetomi said.
But Shigetomi argued that McGovern, 19, feared for his life because he had heard rumors that the victims, Wesley Matheson and Cassidy Toole, both 20, intended to kill him and Hill, also 20.
That fear, and the fact that Hill shot Matheson moments before handing a .22 rifle to McGovern so he could kill Toole, constituted extreme mental or emotional distress for McGovern, Shigetomi said. If the jury agrees on that mental state, they could find McGovern guilty of no more than manslaughter.
Deputy prosecutor Jack Matsukawa told the jury that the killings were not the result of mental distress, but part of a plan by McGovern and Hill to steal drugs from Matheson and Toole. Hill testified about that plan during the trial.
"It was all about greed," Matsukawa said.
Supporting Hill's drug-theft version was testimony that McGovern looked in Matheson and Toole's refrigerator for drugs and took marijuana from Toole's car, Matsukawa said. He and Hill also stole $15,000 worth of "grow lights" and other marijuana-growing equipment from the dead men, Matsukawa said.
As to fearing for his own safety, McGovern held the only gun when Hill handed it to him after shooting Matheson, the prosecutor said.