Machete killer loses appeal

MAT-SU — Christopher Erin Rogers Jr. has lost the second of his appeals in dueling murder cases stemming from a December 2007 rampage that left two dead.

On May 4, the state Court of Appeals slapped down Rogers’ appeal of his Palmer case. In that case, Rogers was convicted of murdering his father, grievously wounding his father’s fiancée and harming his father’s dog with a machete.

The latest appeal was to his Anchorage murder conviction. After the attack in Palmer, Rogers drove to Anchorage in his father’s truck and shot three people, killing one.

In his appeal, Rogers argued that he should have been allowed to admit evidence of a drug murder a month prior to his rampage in the same neighborhood where he shot and killed Jason Wenger. The implication was that Wegner’s murder had been related to that earlier slaying and therefore someone else had committed it.

In a ruling issued Friday, state appeals court judge Joel Bolger wrote that judge Eric Aarseth was correct in excluding that evidence. The connection just wasn’t strong enough.

Rogers argued that both cases involved testimony from witnesses of light-colored sedans in the area at the time and tall men in dark Carhartt-like clothing involved in the slayings.

“These common attributes are not distinctive enough to support a reasonable inference that both crimes were committed by the same person or persons. As Judge Aarseth observed, light-colored cars are common, and many people wear dark clothing in the winter in Anchorage. Nor is it unusual for a man to be described as tall,” Bolger wrote.

More evidence the two killings weren’t related — no one ever claimed Wenger had any involvement with drugs, the first murder was committed with a rifle and this one with a pistol and the light-colored sedans reported were described as being of much different sizes.

Alaska criminal trial rules bar evidence that wouldn’t raise a reasonable doubt in a person’s mind as to the defendant’s guilt because it tends to distract jurors from the case at hand. Bolger said Aarseth made the right call.

Rogers also argued that his case should be overturned because the prosecuting attorney referred to him in her closing arguments as a liar and a callous, heartless murderer. Bolger wrote that while courts tend to admonish attorneys from expressing personal opinions about cases, that wasn’t what was going on here.

The case hinged, in large part, on Rogers’ credibility. Shortly after his rampage, he confessed to police that he was trying to kill all three people he shot in Anchorage. But on the witness stand at trial he recanted, saying he shot them but didn’t mean to kill them.

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So Rogers’ credibility, whether he lied and when, was at issue in the case and it was proper for the prosecutor to talk about when and in what context he exhibited signs of being a liar. It wasn’t a personal opinion so much as an interpretation of the facts.

As for Rogers being a callous, heartless murderer — again it wasn’t the prosecutor’s personal opinion.

“Viewed in context, the remarks did not convey the prosecutor’s personal opinion that Rogers was a murderer; rather, the comments were aimed at encouraging the jury to focus its inquiry on whether Rogers was guilty of murder, rather than on the subsidiary issues emphasized by the defense — Rogers’s credibility and sanity,” Bolger wrote.

Contact reporter Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.