Palmer jury hears from accused teen

PALMER -- The second day of testimony in the trial of Wasilla teen Ricky Shivers began with the continued testimony of prosecution witness Wasilla Police Investigator Jean Achee, before Judge Beverly Cutler in Palmer Superior Court.

Achee had conducted the initial taped interview with Shivers following his arrest on April 28 for the alleged beating of a friend he believed was seeing Shivers' girlfriend.

The jury heard Shivers' voice on tape as he answered Achee's questions about the day's events that had culminated with his arrest.

Shivers described the victim as his best friend, and said, "I feel bad for what I did to him.

"She was the best girlfriend I ever had," he said of the girl he believed had betrayed him with the victim.

"I told him I love her," he said on the tape.

"I don't necessarily regret beating him up," said Shivers, although he added that he did regret what he had done.

He said he still cared about the girl and wanted to be with her. Before closing the interview, however, Achee advised Shivers not to try to contact the girl because, having seen the incident, she would be called as a witness.

Assistant District Attorney Rachel Gernat asked that the taped interview be admitted as evidence, along with photographs of Shivers' bruised right hand and other photographs of the scene where the alleged assault occurred.

Achee described his investigation of the crime scene at the girlfriend's home, telling of finding disturbed gravel on the driveway and grass, smears of blood on the door and picture window of the residence and a black aluminum flashlight on the lawn.

He related in detail his unsuccessful attempts to interview the victim at Valley Hospital, where he photographed extensive head wounds and other wounds to the victim's torso.

"He didn't know where he was," Achee said, adding that the victim was restless and screamed out when anyone touched him.

Achee described the swelling of the victim's head and the bleeding from the nose and mouth. He testified that the straight parallel bruises on the victim's chest could have been caused by a flashlight.

Achee interviewed the victim 12 days after the assault, when he was at home on May 9. He described the victim as very slow and walking with a stagger. He said the victim's eyes were still red and his face showed the effects of his injuries. The teen told Achee he was preparing to leave the state to go to Washington. Achee testified that was the last time he had seen the victim.

Under cross-examination by Defense Attorney Eugene Cyrus, Achee told of his extensive experience and training as a police officer. Cyrus asked Achee if he had during the course of his interview with Shivers been thinking about the elements of an offense which must be proven in court, and had focused his questions on those elements.

Achee said he had been trying to get information about the assault itself, and to get Shivers' side of the story. He said he could tell the injuries were serious because of all the blood, the statements of the emergency medical responders, and the swelling.

Achee said he had not asked directly about Shivers' intent because he did not feel he had to do so. Shivers had admitted to beating the victim repeatedly and he had not stopped, Achee said, even when he saw a lot of blood.

During a jury recess, the court dealt with the defense's objection to a jailhouse letter the prosecution intended to present as evidence. The letter was allegedly written by Shivers to a friend while he was incarcerated at Mat-Su Pre-Trial Facility.

When the jury returned from lunch at 2 p.m., Cutler advised them the first page of the letter would be admitted, but the remainder would not. Cutler advised the jury that the remaining pages of the letter did not reflect any remorse on the part of the defendant, and described the defendant's relationships with both the girlfriend and another girl.

The prosecution called Dr. Brent Taylor, the on-call surgeon who was one of the doctors treating the victim when he was admitted to Valley Hospital.

Taylor's initial observations of the victim had been that he was flat on a gurney, sleeping, with swelling and blood about the face. He said the victim had been able to provide only garbled, unintelligible answers to Taylor's questions as he tried to get a history.

Taylor described the CT scan, chest X-ray and other diagnostic tools used in determining the nature and extent of the victim's injuries. They established the stab wounds on the torso to be superficial, he said, but the wounds to the head to be serious.

The victim had multiple skull fractures, including one eye socket and the upper part of his jaw broken, and there was bleeding into the brain. There was no evidence of drugs or alcohol.

Gernat submitted into evidence the victim's medical records, and asked the doctor to describe on a chart drawing of a human head the location of the head wounds.

Taylor drew in the location and approximate size of a series of injuries he described as a closed-head injury, a bleed into brain tissue, a small depression and skull fracture in another part of the skull, a Le Fort facial fracture of the upper jaw in which the plate holding the teeth was separated from the base of the skull, blowout fractures of the floor and side of the right eye socket, fracture of the frontal sinus, fractures of the nasal bones and extensive facial bruises.

In addition, Taylor said the victim suffered from superficial stab wounds in the left lower back and blood in the urine consistent with blunt force trauma to the thorax.

Taylor said the victim was in intensive care for three days while doctors monitored his injuries and conducted tests to determine his mental status. They were concerned over the victim's alternating between periods of calm and screaming, a condition Taylor described as "labile." According to Taylor, the doctors determined within the first 24 hours that the injuries were serious but not life-threatening.

Taylor described the victim at discharge on May 6 as OK medically and greatly improved from a neurological standpoint, although the victim's mother described him as "different." Taylor said he would need additional rehabilitation and follow-up care.

Taylor said he was told the victim "fell down" a hill and hit his head. He found that account inconsistent with the nature of the wounds on both sides of the victim's head.

Under cross-examination, Taylor said the most serious skull injury was to the brain at the microscopic level as evidenced by the victim's labile behavior, memory loss and reported personality change. Neuropsych testing revealed damage to the victim's cognitive functions, he said.

Gernat asked at redirect about the probability of the victim's making a complete recovery, and Taylor responded that not only the bone but the soft tissue of the face had been damaged. Under those circumstances he said nothing would ever be exactly the same.

Gernat asked Taylor if the depressed fracture at the rear of the victim's skull could have been caused by a tree? Taylor said it could.

"A fist?" she asked.

Taylor answered probably not.

"A flashlight?"

"Yes."

"A kick?"

"Yes."

The injuries, Taylor said, were serious with the potential for deterioration or long-term negative effects.

"Could they affect his life?" Gernat asked.

"Yes," Taylor said.

The prosecution rested.

The defense called the defendant, Ricky Shivers, to the stand, as the day's final witness.

Shivers said he was living with the victim and his father at the time of the incident. They had met, according to Shivers, at a Christmas party in 2001 and found they had a number of things in common.

Shivers said he met the girlfriend at a New Year'sEve party at a relative's house and began dating her. After about two and a half weeks, Shivers said they were a couple and known as a couple at school.

He said he moved in with the victim at the beginning of April, following spring break from school. The two boys had drywalled and carpeted a garage at the victim's father's residence, in which they then roomed together. They had both just turned 17.

When Cyrus asked him if they ever fought, Shivers responded that they had never even argued. Shivers said they each had a girlfriend.

When Cyrus asked him to explain that the victim remembered a warning from Shivers about the girlfriend, Shivers admitted to making the statements, but said it had been a joke.

Shivers described April 28 as a good day, even a "great day." It was the first day of really good weather, and the boys had played basketball and gone to Burger King.

Shivers' girlfriend called at 7 p.m. and asked them to go to a party. Shivers said they had not been drinking, but had taken "yellowjackets from GNC."

During the last few minutes of Thursday's proceedings, Shivers testified that the teens met at the Fred Meyer parking lot to change cars since the victim was the evening's designated driver. Iinitially they went to one party, and then decided to have a smaller party at Shivers' girlfriend's house.

Shivers was originally charged with three counts of first-degree assault, however he pled no contest to a reduced charge of second-degree assault for one of those counts during proceedings last week. Cutler advised the jury of the plea agreement and said they would be deliberating only on two of the original three counts of first-degree assault.

The defense will continue its case Tuesday morning in Superior Court. The court is scheduled to hear final arguments on Tuesday afternoon.