Trial begins for Talkeetna shooter

PALMER — Was Donald Voorhis trying to kill his neighbor when he fired his rifle two years ago? And what about those shots prosecutors say he fired at Alaska State Troopers?

That’s what the jury will have to decide at the end of what is expected to be a two- or three-week trial before Superior Court Judge Eric Smith. Voorhis is charged with three misdemeanors and 10 felonies, including three counts of attempted murder.

Voorhis’ attorney, Herman Walker, and Palmer District Attorney Romany Kalytiak gave their opening statements Tuesday.

Kalytiak delved into two incidents Sept. 6, 2006 outside Voorhis’ trailer home on Rampart Loop in Talkeetna.

During the first, Voorhis, carrying a rifle, stopped a truck containing two brothers, David and Ronald Davis, ordered David out, and demanded he look at a bullet hole Voorhis had found in one of the trucks parked near his trailer. Eventually David got back in his truck.

“Don’t come back here. I’m going to kill anyone who comes back here,” Kalytiak said Voorhis shouted as the truck drove away. “I’m going to kill the troopers if you call the troopers.”

Later that day, Voorhis stopped the Ford Escort another neighbor, John Yow, was driving and pointed a rifle at the man. A shot was fired. It missed. Yow took off.

“Mr. Yow has his Escort in reverse going as fast as he can, trying to keep the brush on the side of the road between the defendant and him and also trying to call 911,” Kalytiak said.

Troopers showed up later that day but Voorhis fled into the woods, Kalytiak said. They returned two days later and a standoff ensued, lasting three days. At one point, Kalytiak said, troopers tried to enter the trailer and grab Voorhis but were fired at. They returned fire and retreated, he said.

Troopers tried to get Voorhis out using tear gas, a water cannon, and a flash bomb, to no avail, Kalytiak said.

Finally, Kalytiak said, they borrowed Yow’s bulldozer and peeled the front wall off Voorhis’ cabin, finding him laying inside.

Kalytiak said troopers acted appropriately: “This was a situation where if they had backed off he would’ve done something worse in the future. Heads would have rolled.”

Walker said his client wasn’t feeling right in the head that day. None of this would have happened if he’d just stayed in bed.

“If he hadn’t stepped out of his home that day it would not have been destroyed,” Walker said.

Most of Walker’s opening statements were delivered in the first-person, with Walker speaking in the voice of his client.

Walker said Voorhis pulled his neighbor from his truck because he just needed to show someone what had happened to his own truck. He said it was the third time someone had shot one of Voorhis’ vehicles.

As to the shout Kalytiak quoted, Walker, in the voice of Voorhis, explained, “I yelled at him as he was leaving to call the troopers.”

As for Yow, Walker said Voorhis had a past run-in with the man, in which Yow accused Voorhis of shooting at his house. Voorhis was never charged.

And the shot Voorhis fired that afternoon? Walker said Voorhis turned the gun away from Yow before firing, something Yow himself said was true in previous hearings before later changing his story.

The standoff, Walker said, was the result of overeager troopers coming to arrest a man their own psychiatrist brought in during the standoff described as delusional and difficult to reason with.

When troopers showed up, Walker said, Voorhis didn’t even know they were troopers until his trailer was surrounded.

“My trailer is my safety net. It’s where I need to be. I’m going to be killed if I leave my trailer,” Walker said in the voice of Voorhis.

As to the exchange of gunfire, troopers had been saturating the trailer with tear gas. Then they threw in the flash bomb to try and disorient him before grabbing him.

“Everything just happens and I don’t know what happened,” Walker said, speaking as Voorhis.

Walker said there should be better procedures for dealing with someone as mentally troubled as his client. In the end, Walker said, troopers destroyed Voorhis’ “dream home” when they could have just as easily waited him out.

“Donald wasn’t going anywhere,” he said.

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