http://www.tennessean.com/article/D4/20100423/NEWS01/4230324/PALMER+SMITH+TRIAL++Was+Smith+driving+vehicle
PALMER SMITH TRIAL: Was Smith driving vehicle?Jury to decide case today
BY MARK BELL •
MBELL@DNJ.COM • April 23, 2010
Jurors will resume deliberations today in the case against a Murfreesboro man accused of crimes in relation to the disappearance of his wife in December 2007.
Palmer Smith is charged with two counts of tampering with evidence and six counts of making false statements to police. He has not been directly charged in his wife's disappearance and has pleaded not guilty to all eight charges against him.
Prosecutor Trevor Lynch rested the state's case Thursday and defense attorneys John Norton and Libby Snider called no witnesses. Smith did not testify at his own trial.
Jurors began deliberating the case around 3 p.m. Thursday. Circuit Court Judge Don Ash dismissed them after two and a half hours and ordered them to resume deliberations today.
Assistant District Attorney Trevor Lynch, in closing arguments to the jury, said proof has shown that Palmer Smith was the person who drove Marsilene Smith's vehicle to a Walmart parking lot and was the man who removed a bike from the back of that vehicle and rode away on the day she disappeared.
"If you believe it was Palmer Smith driving the (Lincoln) Navigator, then everything falls into place," Lynch told the jury.
The investigative coincidences add up, he added. The man in the Walmart video riding away on the bike wore a dark hat, tan jacket and rode a bike, all similar to items found in Palmer Smith's home, Lynch said. A witness, Leah Talbert, identified Smith as the driver of the vehicle at 2:30 p.m. the day of the incident
"A tan jacket, dark hat, his wife's vehicle, a bicycle and an eye witness identifying him. At some point logic breaks away from fantasy," Lynch explained. "One coincidence — maybe. Five? I don't think so."
Smith is charged with tampering with evidence and fabricating evidence by using the vehicle to effect the outcome of the Murfreesboro Police Department's investigation into his missing wife, Lynch explained. Smith told police in initial interviews that the last time he saw his wife was around 1:30 p.m. when she left in her Navigator.
By being spotted in the vehicle at 2:30 p.m. by Talbert, it shows that Smith was tampering with evidence.
The prosecutor also explained that Smith, in parking the vehicle between two moving trucks, leaving the keys in the ignition and leaving the passenger door open, fabricated evidence.
"He made the vehicle evidence," Lynch explained, adding that officers focused on the car as a starting point for their missing persons investigation. "He made the quality or realness of that evidence unknown."
Smith also made several false statements to police, Lynch said, which is the reasoning behind the other six charges pending against him.
For example, in count three, Smith is accused of making a false statement about the last time he saw his wife and where he saw her.
"He told (MPD) officer (Bobby Edwards) that she left in the Lincoln Navigator around 1:30 p.m., but he knew she wasn't in it because he was in it at Walmart at 2:30 p.m.," Lynch told the jury.
The prosecutor also contends that Smith knew his wife had more than $500 on her person at the time he was interviewed by Edwards and that he later admitted to it in a conversation with Maj. Jim Gauge at the MPD interview room.
Smith told investigators that she was probably carrying near $10,000, which they were hiding from the Internal Revenue Service.
Police might have looked into other motives if they had that information earlier, Lynch said.
The prosecutor said Smith also initiated a false report of a present emergency.
"You will decide if a missing person is an emergency," he said. "If a loved one is missing, is that an emergency? Add to that the report of her being diabetic. Does that increase the urgency of locating her? The defendant knew the report was false or baseless."
Defense attorney Norton,in closing, attacked the prosecution's case as being "smoke, mirrors, PowerPoint," referencing Lynch's use of a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation to present his closing arguments.
Norton pointed out how, on the first day of the trial, an "epiphany report" surfaced.
He was referenced a supplemental report written by Officer Edwards two years after his Dec. 6, 2007, interview with Palmer Smith. The report indicates that Marsilene Smith left home with $600 on the day she disappeared.
"How was that material fact left out of the initial report made by the officer?"
Norton also attacked the credibility of the state's witness, Leah Talbert, who testified that she saw Palmer Smith driving his wife's car and later picked Smith out of a photo lineup at the Murfreesboro Police Department.
"You should consider the witness's possible familiarity with the defendant from other sources," Norton said. "Ms. Talbert admitted her fiancé's mother and father had contacted her ... and suggested it might have been them in a television story (concerning Mrs. Smith's disappearance). She said she simply checked that story on a TV station and on the Internet."
Talbert told the jury she didn't watch TV news, Norton reminded the jury. But he then introduced a statement Talbert made to police about watching TV news about the missing woman case.
"We questioned her about that statement and she said 'I made a mistake,'" Norton said. "With all due respect, ladies and gentleman, she either looked at the news about this missing woman or didn't. She had numerous opportunities to correct that mistake.
"We don't know what she looked at and how often she looked at it and how that would have influenced her identification (of Palmer Smith)," Norton said.
As for the fabricating and tampering with evidence charges, Norton said, one of the "key requirements to prove it is that the defendant must know that an investigation or official proceeding is pending."
"Make no mistake, we are saying to you we did not do this," Norton said. "Unfortunately I'm in the position here where I have to hypothesize with you that it did happen."
Norton explained that Smith didn't report his wife missing until around 6 p.m. Dec. 6, 2007.
"The car was placed there at 2:24:57 p.m.," Norton said. "That investigation was not pending. Smoke, mirrors, PowerPoint."
Norton accused the district attorney's office of trying to throw a bunch of charges against Smith just to see what would stick.
"The simple fact is that Marsilene Smith is, was and remains missing today," Norton said.
