White River Junction
But defense attorneys countered by arguing that prosecutors constructed a faulty timeline. A different interpretation of the evidence indicates that Perkins’ husband, Michael, had plenty of time to do just that.
Lead prosecutor Christopher Moll said text messages show the shooting that killed Scott Hill, 48, and wounded Emma Jozefiak, then 19, happened between 10:11 a.m. and 11:16 a.m. on Nov. 8, 2011.
Hill sent the last text of his life to the Perkinses’ shared cellphone at 10:11 a.m. asking, “you coming girl?” and cellphone records show either Emily or Michael Perkins sent out multiple texts at 11:16 a.m. saying “got thirties for forty,” suggesting the couple had pills to sell.
“I submit to you, ladies and gentlemen, that Michael is not a part of this picture,” Moll said in his closing argument.
By the prosecution’s account, which was pieced together through text messages and witness testimony given over the last eight days, Emily Perkins arrived at Hill’s residence around 10:15 a.m. to pay for the one Percocet he loaned her as collateral for a .22 caliber pistol she left the day before. Evidence shows she was near his trailer at 10:11 a.m., Moll said.
Perkins, who testified she was at the residence a total of 25 or 30 minutes, left the Bethel trailer about 10:45 a.m. to return home, Moll said. (Perkins left Hill’s for a short while between 10:15 a.m. and 10:45 a.m. to wait for a person who was in Hill’s house to leave so she could return to complete the gun-for-drugs transaction in which she would receive five more Percocets for the pistol.)
She would have arrived at the couple’s Sharon home around 11 a.m. if she drove fast, which she testified to doing, Moll said. An expert testified that the ride from Hill’s trailer to the Perkinses’ house was about 20 minutes.
Perkins testified that, after arriving home, she told her husband that Hill made a sexual advance toward her in his driveway while she was there, and in turn, Michael Perkins got into the couple’s car and drove to Hill’s. Moll said he would have arrived at Hill’s trailer after what was described as the “window of opportunity” for committing the crimes.
Several witnesses said they arrived at Hill’s trailer begining around 11:15 a.m. on the day in question. Those witnesses said Hill’s cars were in the yard, his dogs were tied up but no one was in sight or answering a knock at the door.
When those witnesses arrived, the shootings had already occurred, Moll said. If Michael Perkins arrived while people were there, someone would have seen him, Moll said.
“He can’t get there,” Moll told jurors. “It can’t happen.”
Lead defense attorney Devin McLaughlin said the window of opportunity should start earlier than where prosecutors began, which makes the defense account of Michael Perkins being the shooter not only plausible but true. Moll “grossly” misrepresented some of the witnesses’ testimony about when those witnesses were at Hill’s trailer that morning, McLaughlin said
“This is fictional by the state,” said McLaughlin of Moll’s timeline.
The picture McLaughlin painted, which was also based on text messages and witness testimony, placed Emily Perkins at Hill’s trailer “a little bit before” 10 a.m.
When Emily Perkins received the 10:11 a.m. text from Hill, McLaughlin said, she had already left Hill’s the first time and was waiting down the road for the individual to leave the house so she could return. Therefore, she returned back to the trailer about one or two minutes after the 10:11 a.m. text, McLaughlin said.
Perkins testified that after she returned to the trailer, Hill pushed her up against her vehicle, put his hand up her shirt and demanded more than just the gun for additional pills. She sped home and would have made it there not around 11 a.m., as prosecutors argued, but by 10:45 a.m., McLaughlin said.
Therefore, Michael could have made it to the trailer by around 11 a.m., McLaughlin said.
“It all fits together,” McLaughlin said. “There is ample time.”
Emily Perkins has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder and attempted second-degree murder.
Throughout the lengthy trial, jurors listened to several taped interviews police had with Emily Perkins in the months after the shooting. In those, she told them several different stories about her involvement, ranging from none at all to shooting Jozefiak after she saw Jozefiak shoot Hill that morning.
Perkins testified at her trial Tuesday and told jurors she lied to police to protect her terminally ill husband, who she said killed Hill and wounded Jozefiak, and afford him the most time with the couple’s two children.
The state waited more than two years to charge Emily Perkins with the crime, which they did two weeks after her husband died from brain cancer in January 2014. After initial interviews with police in the months after the shooting, the couple hadn’t heard from police for 22 months. She testified that her husband didn’t step forward and take responsibility for the shootings because he was dealing with his terminal illness, and the shooting “was not our focus,” Perkins testified.
Also in his closing argument, Moll presented for the first time the state’s theory of what happened inside the trailer that morning. He also gave a potential motive for the crime: Hill didn’t go through with the gun-for-drugs deal and kept the gun. Emily Perkins, Moll said, needed that gun back, as it was Michael’s prized possession and he didn’t know she had taken it.
Moll argued that Perkins went back inside Hill’s that day to get the gun after the individual left. She entered, picked it up off the counter and intended to leave without anyone noticing. Hill heard her inside and approached her, Moll argued, so she shot him.
Moll doesn’t think Perkins knew Jozefiak was there at the time, and when Jozefiak heard Perkins shoot Hill, she came into the main living quarters. Perkins then shot Jozefiak because “now there is a witness,” Moll said.
Perkins first grazed Jozefiak with a bullet, causing her to fall to the ground in front of a chair, before shooting her from a downward angle in the top of her head.
“There is no other way that the bullet ends up going through the top of Emma’s head,” Moll said.
During his closing argument, McLaughlin highlighted the fact that law enforcement officers had testified that no one could piece together exactly what happened inside Hill’s home. Many testified the scene inside the trailer indicated a struggle had taken place. Chairs were overturned, the kitchen table was pushed out of the way and playing cards were spread around the floor.
Moll on Wednesday said prosecutors don’t believe a struggle took place. Instead, they suggested that Jozefiak, over the course of the three days while she lay wounded on the floor before being found, moved around the trailer “like a wind-up toy” bumping into things.
McLaughlin called that theory a “fatal defect” in the prosecution’s case.
Whether or not a struggle took place was an important point of contention. Prosecutors argued that Perkins told police investigators she didn’t see evidence of a struggle because, in fact, there was none when she was in the trailer. The defense argued that there was a struggle, and Perkins denied seeing evidence of one because she was never in the trailer after the shooting.
“That proves her innocence,” McLaughlin said.
Emily Perkins told police so many lies, “I lost track of them,” he told jurors.
“The fact of lying doesn’t make her a murderer,” he said, adding that “her lies are more consistent with protecting Michael.”
Both parties in their closing arguments talked about the alleged confession letter purportedly written by Michael Perkins, a document that surfaced after he died. In it, the writer takes responsibility for killing Hill and wounding Jozefiak.
The letter was just vague enough to be written with “bits and pieces of what really happened” and stitched “together with lies,” Moll said.
McLaughlin contended the letter was written by someone who had quite a bit of knowledge about the crime scene, something his client didn’t have.
“Has the state proven her guilt beyond a reasonable doubt?” McLaughlin posed to the jury at the end of the day. “If you have doubt … we are asking you to check the ‘not guilty’ box.”
On Wednesday, prosecutors’ closing arguments lasted nearly 3½ hours; the defense presentation lasted about 90 minutes.
Prosecutors will have the final word with the jury this morning at 9 a.m. Judge Theresa DiMauro will then instruct jurors before they begin their deliberations.
Jordan Cuddemi can be reached at jcuddemi@vnews.com or 603-727-3248.
Correction
The defense for Emily Perkins spent about 90 minutes on its closing argument Wednesday. An earlier version of this story gave an incorrect duration.