Saturday, December 11, 1999

Defendant claims victim was burglar

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Jury will get murder case next week

BY STEVE KEMME
The Cincinnati Enquirer

        HAMILTON — Shortly after Billie Lee Jenks let David L. Wallace move into her house in Carrollton, Ky., in July 1998, he gave her a warning.

        “He said, "You don't know who I am. You don't know who you're messing with,'” Ms. Jenks said Friday in Butler County Common Pleas Court.

        Over the next four months, he revealed to her that his real name was James Lee Lawson and that he was wanted in Butler County for killing Cheryl Ann Durkin on Feb. 24, 1998, and then dismembering her body.

        Ms. Jenks said he told her that on the day of the slaying, he came home and saw a burglar bent over his safe, grabbed a hammer or some other tool and struck her in the head.

        “He said, "She dropped like a fly' and snapped his fingers,” she said. “He said he never saw her face before he hit her and didn't know it was a woman. He said he didn't intend to kill her.”

        Mr. Lawson's state of mind when he killed Ms. Durkin, 33, of Madison Township, is the key question in his murder trial before Common Pleas Judge Patricia Oney.

Intent is key
        The prosecution has tried to present evidence showing that he meant to kill Ms. Durkin and deserves a murder conviction. Mr. Lawson's attorney, John Rion, wants the jury to conclude that he did not mean to kill her and deserves to be convicted of a less serious charge, such as manslaughter.

        The prosecution and the defense rested their cases Friday. After each side presents closing arguments Monday, the jury will begin deliberations.

        Mr. Rion said he called no witnesses because he believes Ms. Jenks' testimony established that Mr. Lawson did not intend to kill Ms. Durkin. Ms. Jenks was given immunity by the prosecution for testifying.

        He said after Ms. Jenks' testimony, he and Mr. Lawson decided that he would not go on the witness stand.

        Mr. Lawson, 30, of Middletown, was arrested at Ms. Jenks' house on Nov. 28, 1998, after being the target of a nationwide manhunt. Ms. Jenks had told her grandmother about the death two days earlier, and her grandmother contacted police.

        Mr. Lawson's mother, Ellen Peck, and his sister, Melissa Botts, buried some of Ms. Durkin's body parts in Preble County and Brookville, Ind. Ms. Peck is in prison for her role in the coverup, and Mrs. Botts is awaiting sentencing for tampering with evidence.

Defense rests
        Ms. Peck had been brought to the Butler County Jail from state prison this week as a possible defense witness. But Mr. Rion said he decided Ms. Jenks' statements were enough to support the defense's case.

        Ms. Jenks, who now lives in Cape Coral, Fla., testified that Mr. Lawson told her his house had been burglarized two weeks before he discovered Ms. Durkin in his house.

        “He said he lived in a bad part of town and was worried because there were rough people there,” she said.

        She said Mr. Lawson told her he had ingested cocaine the day he killed Ms. Durkin. He carried her body downstairs and then fell asleep, she said.

        “He woke up thinking it was a dream,” Ms. Jenks said. “Then he realized it wasn't a dream. He said he had to get rid of the body.”

        He cut up the body in his basement and put the body parts in trash bags and set them in the back yard with piles of leaves, she said.

        He threw Ms. Durkin's torso from a bridge into the Great Miami River, she said.

        The torso was found floating in the river in Hamilton in April 1998.

        Despite these actions, Ms. Jenks said, she was not afraid of Mr. Lawson and didn't think he was a murderer.

        Under cross-examination by Mr. Rion, she said that she felt comfortable leaving her son alone with Mr. Lawson.

       

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