Jury deliberations begin in Welton trial

At the end of seven weeks of hard listening, the question is now before 12 jurists and four alternates: Did Suzette Welton murder her 14-year-old son, Samuel?

The jury went into deliberations Wednesday morning to decide whether Welton is guilty of first-degree murder, attempted murder and arson. In six hours of closing arguments Tuesday, the prosecution and the defense hammered out opposing theories about what happened the morning of Sept. 15, 2000, when young Samuel Welton died in a fire.

The prosecution:

Closing arguments in the Welton case began as District Attorney Roman Kalytiak showed jurors lists of inconsistencies in the case. Welton failed to check in with investigators to find out what happened to her son, Kalytiak said. "Does this sound like a concerned, devoted mother?"

He described Welton as a woman who proved unemotional, nervous and skittish to her friend after the fire, and as a woman who"loves to send police on a wild goose chase." She had informed a former employer that she was certain her former husband had started the fire. Then, within a day of Samuel's death, she began to pin the blame on Samuel before he was even "buried in the ground," Kalytiak said.

Kalytiak alleged that other inconsistent actions prove her guilt, such as allegedly lying numerous times to her surviving son Jeremiah. Welton claimed in taped conversations that she had defended Jeremiah against Alaska State Trooper allegations that Jeremiah himself was suspected of setting the fire.

He quoted Welton, "'Do you know I defended you - you leave my son alone. I didn't hesitate.'"

In fact, the opposite was true, Kalytiak said, because Welton was willing to implicate either and both sons in the arson. She did this by supplying information to her defense team that made it look like Jeremiah was dangerously deep into drugs, and that Samuel's writings indicated a disturbed, suicidal youth, he said.

A Federal Bureau of Investigations criminologist had testified at the trial that no drugs were found in Jeremiah's system aside from the sleeping medication the state believes she slipped into the boys' drinks the night before the fire, Kalytiak said. During the trial the prosecution alleged that Welton had bought the boys' drinks and then had slipped Sleepinal into them.

Samuel's writings proved he was an intelligent, creative young boy who, by Welton's own account, was her "funny boy," he said.

Kalytiak said Welton lied to Jeremiah because she "knew he was already going to the other side." In taped discussions with him she elaborated that she believed Sam had lit the fire. "Do you think it's easy to sit there and read this stuff in his journal?" she asked him.

"She is telling her surviving son that the evidence is black and white, and your brother caused this. How can a parent say that?" Kalytiak asked the jury.

Jeremiah asked his mother in the same conversation about the mutual funds. She told him that the fund was "on hold now," misleading Jeremiah to believe that the $100,000 life insurance policy she had taken on each son was an investment, Kalytiak said. The prosecution demonstrated during the case that the policies in question would not have benefitted the boys until they were middle-aged.

During his summation, Kalytiak painted a scenario in which a desperate mother took out life insurance policies on her two sons, bought Sleepinal and a gas can and plotted a fiery death. "He was trapped in an oven," Kalytiak said. He asked the jury to consider whether these details amounted to strange coincidences -- or murder.

The defense:

Suzette Welton, in the final days of her murder trial, sat quietly as her defense attorney asked the jury to see that the state's case against his client lacks solid proof.

Welton's defense attorney, Public Defender Greg Heath, told jurors that the state's "so-called evidence" was inaccurate. No solid links were made between Welton and the fire, he said. There was no proof the fire was set, or that Welton had any intention of killing her son. The life insurance purchases ensued because she was approached by State Farm to renew her own life insurance policy, he said.

"Suzette Welton loved Samuel. Where is any credible evidence that says otherwise?" Heath asked. During her 16 years as a mother, there are no prior acts of harm to them, he said. "Where is the abusive mother you've been told about? Suddenly, she's going to execute a plan to kill her own son to pay off her creditors?"

The jury was shown bits and pieces of facts to create a puzzle and make it look like his defendant caused the fire, Heath said. "We don't know what happened that night. This is a case full of reasonable doubt," he said.

He pointed out that Welton's belongings -- collectibles and antique furnishings -- were destroyed in the fire. She wasn't desperate financially since she received $1,100 in child support from her former husband and she earned $1,000 a month, he said.

The conversations between Welton and her surviving son, Jeremiah, indicate as many positives as negatives, Heath said. "At one point he admits, 'Mom, I am so confused.'"

Jeremiah was confused because he was influenced by information given him by the troopers, Heath said. "Once you've been told something about someone, it influences how you look at that person. You would analyze his actions and his words," he said.

In this way, the investigation was botched from the start, Heath said. He added that investigators poisoned the well by deciding the same day of the fire that Welton was to blame, and "they didn't look back."

Fire investigators sent evidence to the wrong kind of lab, one that analyzes for water pollution, Heath said, not arson. Flash-over was testified to by three fire experts, which shows that the original fire investigator, Carol Olson, was contradicted in her testimony when she said the fire appeared to be arson. Fire investigators didn't interview all the firefighters who put out the blaze on Sept. 15, Heath said, even the first one to respond, who testified that Welton was highly distraught about the death of her son and the fire.

Firefighter John Glenn had testified that what was thought to be a melted red gas can turned out to be something made of fabric, Heath said.

The information about window hand cranks was misleading and inaccurate, Welton's attorney told the jury. The state contends Welton removed the cranks to keep the boys from escaping the fire. But Heath said fire testimony proved the cranks could have melted in the nearly 2,000-degree blaze, and, earlier that night, Jeremiah had found a crank in order to open his window.

Heath said the defense's position is that fire didn't have to stem from a homicidal or suicidal impulse, but by accident. Samuel played with lighters and lighter fluid inside the house, he said. Testimony from an Anchorage psychiatrist showed that was only one risk factor in a profile that included a boy who dropped out of school and was increasingly isolating himself.

As for how Welton acted following the fire, she was in a horrible position, Heath said. A former school teacher of Samuel's had testified that Welton wasn't allowed to properly grieve over the loss of her son and separation from her other children. The teacher had spent a week at Welton's side right after the fire.

"How is she supposed to respond to grief piled on grief when the troopers are questioning her five hours after the fire?" Heath said. "What you've got is individuals already making up their minds that she did it."

Heath closed his argument by showing several writings alleged to be Samuel's projected onto the screen. The poems contained phrases about wanting to die, which, Heath said, is a window into Samuel's mental state.

One poem dated the day prior to the fire contained fire and death images, and ended on the line, "Sleep now Sam."

At the end of closing arguments, neither the defense nor the prosecution said they could predict how long the jury will deliberate on the case.