Trial opens in murder case

Suspect who confessed to 2003 killing now blames another

November 1, 2005

MARY AMES/Frontiersman reporter

PALMER - A Big Lake man who repeatedly confessed to the 2003 shotgun slaying of his wife's cousin is now contending another man actually committed the crime.

A trial began Oct. 24 in Palmer Superior Court for Richard Deremer, 34, who allegedly plotted with his wife, Cynthia Estes-Deremer, 45, to kill her 49-year-old cousin, David McKinney, in November 2003 so they could plunder a cache of pain medication McKinney kept inside a floor safe, and use and sell it themselves. Deremer and his wife then allegedly burned down McKinney's home to destroy evidence.

Deremer's attorney, John Murtagh of Anchorage, named another man as the actual murderer while delivering his opening statement last Monday, saying the real murderer has a problem with pills and told people he was going to do a home invasion and burn the evidence.

&#8220This is a case about a murderer and a fool,” Murtagh said. &#8220But they are two separate people.”

Murtagh said the term &#8220fool” was meant to refer to court jesters, who could say outrageous things without anything happening to them.

When the man was in jail, according to Murtagh, he wrote notes to his cell mate about who should be told to shut up about it. The man also specifically talked about things not known about the crime scene by anyone other than investigators and the person who committed the crime. Murtagh said the man also said he had left something in the safe that shouldn't have been there.

In her opening statement, Assistant District Attorney Suzanne Powell said the evidence would show Deremer confessed to the murder and arson multiple times and actually did murder McKinney and burn down his home.

&#8220He confessed, ‘I was the trigger man, I lit the fire,'” Powell said in her opening statement.

Deremer's friends unwittingly lent him the 12-gauge shotgun later used in McKinney's slaying, prosecutors said. Deremer happened to call those friends while investigators were visiting, preparing to take the shotgun as evidence.

&#8220Deremer called his friends not knowing the troopers were there and told them, ‘Tell them you never borrowed me nothin',” Powell told the jury.

McKinney had confronted Deremer and his wife at their home in Big Lake about stealing his pain medication shortly before his death, Powell said. Deremer chased him away with a baseball bat, she said.

He borrowed the shotgun, which he hid in a blue duffle bag, and his wife drove him to McKinney's house Nov. 23 with the gun in the bag. When he arrived, Deremer kicked in the door, found McKinney lying on the couch and shot him once in the head with #8 shell shot, Powell said.

Then, he used a two-way radio to ask his wife to come pick him up, Powell said. The couple then cut through the door in the floor safe with a hand-held grinder, took morphine patches, morphine and Dilaudid pills. But they left behind the disk from the grinder, she said. Deremer also secretly made a videotape of his wife shooting up some of the drugs in front of their young child so she couldn't turn him in to the police, Powell said.

According to charging documents, Deremer told Jason Chew, his employer and cousin, that he wanted to leave his wife, but feared she would tell police he was the murderer. When Chew talked to Alaska State Troopers investigators Sept. 15, 2004, the case that had been open for 10 months began to come together.

Deremer is being held at Mat-Su Pre-Trial Facility in lieu of $600,000 cash-only bail and a court-approved third-party custodian.

The trial continues this week before Palmer Superior Court Judge Eric Smith.

Contact Mary Ames at

352-2284 or mary.ames@

frontiersman.com.