Murder trial begins

PALMER — Both sides in the Frank Adams murder trial under way this week in Palmer agree on one thing — Adams and his girlfriend, Stacey Johnston, had a troubled relationship marred by violence.

“When they would drink they would fight and people would get hurt,” is how Adams’ attorney, Scott Sterling put it.

“For the defendant, the relationship was about manipulation and control. And that was something Stacey couldn’t fix or make better,” was Assistant District Attorney Alison Collins’ take.

Just how violent the relationship was and whether Adams intended to kill her the night she died will likely be the biggest question the jury decides. Adams, 47, was arrested in July of 2007 following a high-speed chase on the Glenn Highway. Officers suspected him of driving drunk. But they ended up finding Johnston’s beaten and bloody body in the back of Adams’ hatchback.

“The defendant, Frank Adams, brutally beat Stacey Johnston to death,” were among Collins’ first words to the jury of eight women and seven men. Among her last were, “the defendant could not have beat Stacey the way he did without intending to kill her.”

She said the coroner is going to tell the jury that Johnston died of multiple injuries to her brain sustained in the beating or of contusions to the heart or of both.

Collins pre-emptively attacked Sterling’s theory of the death, saying that the Benadryl found in her system did not cause her death.

She described the crime scene Alaska State Troopers found at Adams’ cabin in Chickaloon — blood on the walls, floor, furniture, even the ceiling.

And she made a point of showing how three times after Johnston died Adams gave three different explanations for her death.

First, on his way into Palmer with Johnston’s body in the car, Adams, told a friend they’d both been shot and that Johnston had died, Collins said.

The second story he told to police after he put his car into the ditch on the highway.

“The first thing he says is that he had had a really bad day,” Collins said. “He then says that he and his wife had gotten into a plane crash and that she was dead.”

And, finally, after he was in jail and talking to officers, he told an elaborate tale of drug dealers killing Johnston.

Sterling, for his part, agreed with Collins that the story he told police was bogus.

“He tells them a frankly unbelievable story. It’s not true,” Sterling said.

And, he said, he’s not denying that his client was not a good boyfriend to Johnston.

“There hardly seems to be any question that he was abusive,” he said.

But, he said, the prosecutors’ notion that Adams would beat Johnston then try to drive her to Anchorage doesn’t hold water.

“Frank, according to their theory, assaults Stacey to the point of killing her then decides to take her to Alaska’s largest city which is full of police officers,” Sterling said.

What the evidence will show, Sterling said, is that Adams, far from intending to kill Johnston, saw her die then freaked out.

“Frank Adams, like a lot of people, panicked and didn’t know what to do,” Sterling said.

He pointed out that there will be a witness who tells the jury that Adams told him he was heading to the hospital in Anchorage.

Sterling also said the evidence will show that Johnston could have died from the Benadryl in combination with the alcohol she’d been drinking. Sterling said that combination of chemicals can cause a heart arrhythmia, just as contusions to the heart can.

In the end, Sterling said, he believes that far from finding Adams guilty of murder, the jury will discover, “He wasn’t even so reckless as to commit manslaughter.”

Adams’ trial is expected to last three to five weeks. In Alaska, first-degree murder of the type he’s charged with carries a maximum penalty of 99 years in prison.

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