Prosecutors showed Wednesday they'll use a slow, chronological style to convince jurors that a former Fort Carson soldier shot a fellow Iraq veteran to death last December.
In the first full day of testimony against Louis Bressler, 25, prosecutors started with Richard Behl, who discovered the bullet-riddled body of Kevin R. Shields while delivering newspapers in Old Colorado City.
"He wasn't moving," Behl said before describing blood covering the victim's face that he saw in his headlights in the early morning hours of Dec. 1, 2007.
Next on the stand were neighbors who heard gunshots in the pre-dawn darkness but never thought the situation was serious enough to call police.
"I heard a car slowly drive away and I assumed those were backfires," said neighbor Tina Gilbert.
Police witnesses described where the body was found, sprawled on a parking strip and surrounded by several cigarette butts including one on Shields' chest.
All together, what was presented on the witness stand Wednesday didn't add up to much. The name of the man in a white shirt and brown pants who watched it all from his seat at the defense table - defendant Louis Bressler - didn't come up.
But it did begin to lay a foundation for two weeks of testimony ahead including words from two men who have already pleaded guilty in Shields' death as part of agreements to point the blame at Bressler.
In opening arguments Tuesday, prosecutors said Bressler killed Shields because he knew too much about robberies Bressler and the two others, Kenneth Eastridge and Bruce Bastien, had committed or were going to commit.
Not in dispute is the fact that the three had met Shields downtown for a night of drinking before his death.
Defense attorneys, though, say that Eastridge and Bastien are framing Bressler to minimize their own roles in the killing.
Testimony continues Thursday with evidence on the autopsy of Shields expected to take center stage.-contact the writer: 636-0240 or tom.roeder@gazette.com
Your Privacy Choice