The prosecution rested Monday afternoon and the first defense witnesses were called as Jeffrey Wade Chapman’s trial entered its second week. Chapman is charged with the first-degree murder of Damon Galyardt on Nov. 11, 2011.
The jury was sent home around 3 p.m. Chapman is expected to testify in his own defense Tueday.
Witnesses called by Assistant Attorney General Steven Karrer included Lt. Rick Popp from the Barton County Sheriff’s Office; James Newman, a forensic scientist at the Kansas Bureau of Investigation lab; and Detective David Paden from the BCSO.
Popp produced several pieces of bagged evidence from a large cardboard box. These included items collected from the location on SW 60 Road where Galyardt’s body was discovered by hunters the morning of Nov. 12, 2011; and items found along side the Five-mile Blacktop, which is a mile north of SW 60 Road. Items found included white cotton gloves and a bloody mattress pad that the body was wrapped in.
There was also an Adidis tennis shoe collected in the 200 block of South Washington St.; a towel, a pair of Etnies shoes and a pair of Nike Shox collected from the Stone Street address where Galyardt lived with Summer Hoss, who was pregnant with his child. There was a cell phone and a DNA sample, both taken from Chapman with a search warrant.
One thing that investigators never found was the murder weapon — the gun that fired the .32 caliber bullet.
“We were not able to locate a firearm,” Popp confirmed.
Under cross examination from defense attorney Kurt Kerns, Popp said the shoes ranged in size from 10 to 11 1/2.
Newman testified some items were tested for blood only. Others were also tested for DNA, which is a more expensive and time-consuming test. Those were compared to the known DNA samples of Galyardt, Chapman, and Michelle Nelson.
Galyardt’s blood was on the towel. It was present in several places on a Pontiac Grand Am, including the back seat. It was on one Adids shoe, and on a glove.
The inside of that glove yielded a partial DNA sample, which could come from skin cells that transferred to the material over time. DNA that was most likely Chapman’s was there. The probability that it came from someone else was one in 24 trillion (1 in 24,000,000,000,000), Newman said.
“Can we date DNA?” Kerns asked.
“No I cannot,” Newman answered.
Paden testified about witnesses who told him Galyardt was afraid of Chapman.
He read a transcript of an interview conducted with witness Jeanna Rader on Nov. 30, 2011.
“I know right from wrong, and I know that was not a right thing to do,” Rader said of her delay in coming forth.
Paden explained, “She told me that Jeff had come to her house and told her he thought he had shot somebody.” Paden took her to the courthouse and continued the interview with a court reporter and two other investigators present.
“Damion or Damon — the other guy was ‘bucking up’,” Rader said, allegedly quoting Chapman. She said he told her, “‘I pulled the gun up and shot him in the chest.’”
Still later, Chapman reportedly called and asked Rader to clean up a mess in the back seat of Shayla Richmeier’s Pontiac. He told her he’d hit a dog and picked it up, initially thinking it was his sister’s dog. He brought the car to Rader’s house and she started cleaning the car sometime after 4 a.m. on Nov. 12, but got mad because Chapman went inside.
“I’m not going to clean up something if he’s not going to be out here,” she said. “I was more in disbelief than anything.”
Rader, who testified last week that she doesn’t remember much of what she said in 2011, reportedly tried not to ask too many questions at the time.
“I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to know any of it,” she said in the 2011 transcript.
Why did she withhold the information? “Loyalty maybe,” she said, noting she used to date Chapman. She said she wasn’t afraid. “I just know he feels so sad; I could see it in his eyes.”
Paden also testified about cell phone records obtained from Verizon. Calls made on phones used by Hoss, Galyardt and Chapman were investigated and showed the general vicinity of the phones at the time. The content of text messages showed Galyardt cursing Hoss and accusing her of having an affair with Chapman.
On Nov. 11, Hoss texted to Chapman, “You need to find me a nice new non-tweaker boyfriend, and rich would be nice.”
That night, Hoss had some girlfriends at her house on Stone St. but they left because Galyardt was being rude and wanted to sleep. They returned shortly after 9, and Hoss picked up her phone. She had just missed a call from Chapman. She called him back at 9:07 p.m.
According to her testimony from last week, Chapman was looking for Galyardt but she told him to wait until morning. She left and spent the night with one of her friends.
Later, Chapman reportedly asked Rader to listen to the scanner. At 9:42 p.m. she sent a text to him asking, “What exactly am I listening for?”
Chapman’s location shifted over time from Stafford County to Great Bend and then to Pawnee Rock. At 3:24 a.m. he called Shayla Richmeier; at 5:35 a.m. he called Rader.
Galyardt’s body was found at 8:47 a.m..
During cross examination, Kerns summarized that in the days before he was shot, Galyardt was fighting with Summer Hoss, “using meth, passing out fake money and freaking out the neighbors with a knife.”
Hoss had texted Chapman saying, “Damon trashed by house. He’s a (expletive).”
Hoss initially told investigators she hadn’t seen Galyardt for a week before he died. Kerns asked Paden about that.
Paden said none of the witnesses were particularly cooperative. “It was like pulling teeth to get information.”
After the prosecution rested, Kerns asked for a judgment of acquittal, “based on the evidence so far.”
Karrer responded that the state had made a case, showing Chapman threatened to kill Galyardt; that Galyardt left Chapman’s girlfriend Michelle Detrich in Lyons when he was nearly caught passing counterfeit money, and she was caught. “(Chapman) went to the house with a gun; he was angry,” Karrer said. “All can be considered (by the jury) for premeditation.
“He doesn’t call 911, dumps the body in the county, tosses items and hides the vehicle,” Karrer continued. “We’ve also never found the firearm. He certainly didn’t turn it over to the police.”
Kerns noted that someone else hid the car.
The motion for automatic acquittal was denied and Kerns called his first two witnesses, two of the women who were at the Stone St. house on Nov. 11 and left with Hoss when Galyardt was being rude. Both testified that he knocked over or threw the coffee table in front of the couch.