Jury to hear Berchtold’s actual 911 call of April 11
Former Chillicothean Judith Berchtold’s own voice will help prove the guilt of the estranged boyfriend accused of brutally killing her in a highway intersection near her Sparland home last spring, the Marshall County prosecutor told jurors Monday.
As the trial for Tony Smith got underway, State’s Attorney Paul Bauer told jurors that they will hear the tape of an intense 911 call that Berchtold herself made during an explosively violent incident in which Smith allegedly rammed her car, shot her five times and then beat her body with the butt of his shotgun on the night of April 11.
“You will hear her pleading and begging for Tony to stop. You will hear her tell the dispatcher, ‘He shot me,’ and you will hear her tell the dispatcher, ‘I’m dying,’” Bauer said in his opening statement. “You will know that while he was shooting her five times, he took the time to reload his weapon.”
When the first police officer arrived, Smith told him, “Just shoot me,” and he told ambulance workers to “just let me die” from a gunshot wound rather than trying to save him, according to testimony.
But in response, Smith’s lawyers laid the foundation for a defense that will directly dispute some key prosecution claims, and could also provide grounds for conviction on a lesser charge than the four counts of first-degree murder that Smith faces.
Rather than Smith ramming Berchtold’s car, she actually hit his pickup truck that night, said co-defense lawyer Roger Bolin. And whereas the state claims Smith started shooting while the woman was in her car, Bolin maintained that the first shot was discharged during a struggle over the shotgun after Berchtold took it out of Smith’s truck.
The two had argued after Berchtold came home intoxicated from an outing with friends, and the incident was basically “a domestic dispute fueled by fear, anger and alcohol,” Bolin argued. He offered no explanation for the other four shots, except saying that the incident “spiraled out of control.”
One part of the defense strategy was signaled when Bolin said during a final pre-trial hearing Monday that there will be evidence supporting a second-degree murder conviction, which would mean a much shorter sentence than the 45-year minimum Smith faces for first-degree murder. He made the point in broader terms in his statement to jurors.
“You might find the defendant guilty of some less serious offense,” he said.
Besides the 911 tape, evidence will include graphic photos from the scene and the autopsy.
Sheriff’s Sgt. Jeff Blankenship, who also is deputy county coroner, struggled for words when asked to describe the condition of Berchtold’s body at the scene.
“Pretty bad,” he finally said. “I’ve been deputy coroner for 16 years, and that was probably the worst (condition of a) human being that I’ve ever seen.”
Smith, 40, was wounded by a shot fired by part-time Lacon police officer Dennis Minton, who was the first to respond to a countywide call. When he arrived, Smith was beating Berchtold with an object that turned out be a shotgun with its stock broken off, Minton testified Monday.
“When he pulled the gun out and tried to pump a shell in it, that’s when I shot him,” Minton said.
The trial is expected to last at least a week.
