Accused shooter testifies
Last to take the stand before the defense rested Tuesday in the second day of the murder trial of a New Matamoras man was the accused shooter himself.
“I went to Fred’s house and I ended up shooting him,” said Charles “Chuckie” Wayne Loy, 43, of 203 Duncan Drive, in Washington Common Pleas Judge Mark Kerenyi’s courtroom. “I went to his room and he said ‘I’m going to shoot you’ so I shot him two times.”
Loy is on trial for the murder of Frederick “Fred” Uselton, 50, who was killed while in bed while lying next to the two men’s shared girlfriend, Janet Dawn Shaw, 43, of New Matamoras in the early morning hours of Aug. 28.
“I was to a breaking point. What I did was really wrong and I felt so bad inside,” said Loy. “I couldn’t take it anymore.”
Before Loy’s testimony Washington County Prosecutor Kevin Rings produced five additional witnesses for the prosecution Tuesday, following the five witnesses who testified Monday.
The first to testify was Uselton’s niece, Athena Stillwagon, who said she witnessed Uselton sell his gun, the alleged murder weapon, to Loy in December 2015. Uselton had originally purchased the gun from his friend Ben Thomas earlier that month.
“Charles asked Uncle Fred to bring him the gun and I was with my uncle when he brought Charles the gun,” said Stillwagon. “Then Charles brought me out 3.85 grams of marijuana that I paid for.”
The same 9-millimeter high point hand gun Uselton sold to Loy is what the prosecution said is the alleged murder weapon. It was later found stashed with Loy’s orange ski mask, gloves and jacket in a group of tires stored by the Bada Bing bar in Beavertown.
When Washington County Sheriff’s Det. Lt. Bryan Lockhart, whom Loy had previously worked for as a confidential informant, saw the jacket stashed with the gun, he said that he immediately recognized the garment as Loy’s.
“I found a coat, and I have video of you wearing that coat, doing drug buys for me,” Lockhart said in the recording of an interview with Loy from Aug. 30 when Lockhart charged Loy with murder. “It’s the same coat I found there with this gun I found.”
The jury listened to all 40 minutes of the tape in court Tuesday and heard Loy explain that he hadn’t intended to kill Uselton.
“I didn’t intentionally mean to hurt him,” said Loy on the recording.“He said’ I’m gonna kill you’ or something… I was just seeing if (Shaw) was alright and I was going to leave.”
“I know you (and Uselton) used to be friends, right?” said Lockhart on the recording.
“Best friends, dude,” replied Loy.
While on the stand Loy stated that he was concerned for the well-being of his girlfriend because of her continued drug use and erratic behavior and because he believed Uselton was sexually abusing Shaw.
“I was concerned about her… she was so messed up on ice (methamphetamine) that she was out of control,” said Loy. “But I didn’t want to get in trouble being down (at Uselton’s home).”
Rings asked in cross examination how shooting Uselton at point-blank range in his bed with Shaw lying next to Uselton would have affected Shaw’s mental state.
“You left (Shaw) in the house and ran,” said Rings. “How would she respond to seeing a masked man come in, in the middle of the night, and shoot someone in front of her? It sent her to the mental hospital for three weeks.”
Loy also confirmed testimony from Lockhart, Det. Sgt. Scott Smeeks, Major Troy Hawkins and Lt. Randy Stackpole, who laid out the evidence found at the crime scene. That included Loy’s tracks through the dew-covered grass of Uselton’s neighbor’s yard to Morningside Road where he had hidden his car during the shooting and the secondary crime scene by the Bada Bing bar where the alleged murder weapon, ski mask, gloves and jacket were found.
Smeeks said he recovered the first bullet casing inside the door to Uselton’s bedroom and that a second bullet casing was found closer to Uselton’s bed. Both casings were shown to have been shot from the same 9-millimeter hand gun.
Lockhart said officials believe the first shot fired from the doorway of the room entered Uselton’s body above his right eye socket and traveled through the body’s brain and neck until it lodged in the fat and muscle of Uselton’s shoulder. The second shot, which killed Uselton, was fired into his chest at the base of his neck and caused stippling on the surrounding skin from the close range of the shot.
Loy also confirmed that the drugs Shaw was addicted to were the same kinds found by officials in Loy’s home during the murder investigation. Marijuana, cocaine, alprazolam (Xanax) and hydrocodone (Vicodin) were all found at Loy’s home.
“You said you were very concerned about (Shaw) but instead of calling the sheriff’s office or knocking on the door of Fred’s home and asking ‘hey what’s going on’, you got a coat, a ski mask, gloves and a loaded gun, crept through a back window and you executed Fred Uselton,” said Rings to Loy.
“Yeah, that’s how it ended up,” replied Loy.
Both the defense and prosecution rested their cases Tuesday and are expected to begin closing arguments today at 9 a.m. in Kerenyi’s court.