LAWRENCE CO.— The First Degree Murder conviction of 21-year-old Tyler McQueen on May 3, 2013, was a surprise to some and not so much to others.
As relatively rare as successful appeals and the overturning of convictions are, some believe words uttered by special prosecutor Michael Vujovich during closing arguments are enough for McQueen supporters to hang their hopes on.
Vujovich, a pit-bull in the courtroom, used words like “shocking” and “gruesome,” which are not out of the norm, in describing the stabbing death of Robert Westall, 78, on March 24, 2012 in his sister’s apartment at the United Methodist Village in Lawrenceville.
Testimony was heard that Westall suffered more than two dozen knife wounds.
“In the days following the death of Robert Westall, a small army of Illinois State Police Crime Scene Investigators, a blood spatter analyst and inspectors came in here and worked their butts off,” Vujovich said during his closing arguments. “[Case agent] Tim Brown and his partner used their professional skills to get the suspect [Tyler McQueen] to fess up.
“And when he [McQueen] finally got his story out, the finger of guilt pointed at him. He agreed to take $10,000 and a 1995 Oldsmobile beater of a Cutlass Supreme to take the life of an old man by crawling in through his window while he was asleep in his own bed and slash and kill him.”
Vujovich called the deal McQueen made with Helen Marie Westall, the murdered man’s niece who is also charged and awaiting trial, “surprisingly shameful.
“They surveilled the apartment; they planned this,” Vujovich said. “And by his own admission he [McQueen] didn’t even know the man, didn’t even know what the man looked like.”
Specter of a mistrial
“He entered into a contract to kill Bob for cash and a car but didn’t go there with a weapon? How believable is that?” Vujovich asked the jury during closing. “He crawled in through the window to kill with no weapon but miraculously there’s a knife… and Bob is stabbed not once, not twice, not six times but more than 20 times…” Vujovich said, throwing down first a portrait of a living Robert Westall, then a series of autopsy photos, “and we went from this, to this,” he shouted, slapping down more autopsy photographs as he spoke, “to this and this, all at the hands of that ANIMAL!”
And that’s when defense attorney Matt Vaughn literally jumped up from his seat and objected.
“Your HONOR!” Vaughn shouted.
During a sidebar with attorneys at the judge’s bench and in front of the jury, Vujovich apologized and said he had just gotten caught up in the moment and passion of his closing arguments.
Moments later, outside the presence of the jury, Vaughn argued the comment made in front of the jury prior to deliberation was way out of line and that Vujovich knew better, and he asked for a mistrial to be declared on the spot.
“How do I un-ring that bell, your honor?” Vaughn asked. “I ask you, how do I un-ring the bell?”
Vujovich said he didn’t believe a mistrial was necessary and that his apology and a directive from the court to the jury to disregard the comment, and that it was not to be considered during deliberations, would suffice.
Judge Robert Hopkins denied the motion for mistrial, but that hasn’t kept McQueen supporters from speculating.
Began remembering nothing
Some would argue that a three-hour videotaped interview between case agent Brown and McQueen was probably the most damaging bit of evidence the defense had to overcome during the five-day trial, which began April 29 and concluded May 3, this after almost four full days of jury selection which began a week prior, on April 22, and concluded on the afternoon of Thursday, April 25.
On that video, McQueen began confident, declaring he knew he wasn’t in Lawrenceville, much less the state during the time frame in question and that he hardly knew of Helen Marie Westall and had never heard of Robert Westall.
As the tape wore on and Brown told McQueen the state police had video of him at Westall’s apartment the morning the elderly man was murdered, cell tower pings showing his exact location, fingerprint and DNA evidence placing him at the scene (none of which was true at the time) and that Helen Marie had “told them everything,” he became more unsure of where he was during the time in question and even remembered planning Westall’s death with Helen Marie.
It took nearly another hour before McQueen told Brown how he had been in Helen Marie’s SUV the night before on a drive-by of Robert Westall’s place, and that she told him about a busted window lock and a cut screen and instructed him to pull the phone wires out of the box so “the worthless son-of-a-b*tch couldn’t call for help.”
McQueen said he had told Helen Marie he would kill her uncle but that he didn’t mean it and didn’t remember stabbing anybody.
Recalls stabbing
At the end of the three-hour interview, however, McQueen detailed how he left Helen Marie’s trailer in Bridgeport in the early morning hours and drove the Cutlass to Westall’s apartment in United Methodist Village, arriving there at possibly some time between 4 and 5 a.m.
He told how he got out, stuck his hand through the cut screen and lifted the window with the broken latch. He said he crawled through and into the apartment and found himself in the living room and Westall up and in the kitchen.
He said he tried to run into a room where Westall wouldn’t see him and then just leave, but that Westall spotted him, grabbed a knife from the kitchen and chased him into his bedroom, where the two struggled over control of the knife.
At one point McQueen said he punched the 78-year-old in the face, but that the elderly man kept coming at him with the knife.
“I told him if he would just stop, I’d explain,” McQueen told Inspector Brown on the video.
McQueen said at one point Westall fell on the knife and cut his neck.
He said Westall was on top of him and when he got the knife he just “lost it and started slashing.”
Forensic pathologist Dr. John Heidingsfelder testified on the second day of the trial (April 30) that Westall suffered numerous stab wounds to his kidney area on both sides of his lower back, a stab through his lip that punctured his tongue, two superficial cuts to his neck and four deep cuts to his throat.
According to testimony, it was the throat wounds that led to Westall ultimately bleeding to death.
Lead case agent Illinois State Police
Investigator Tim Brown was credited with
using his interviewing skills to coax Tyler
McQueen into telling authorities what
happened the morning Robert Westall was
murdered.
One fall doesn’t = four-six slashes
It was the 20-plus stab wounds and specifically those throat wounds that lead the prosecution to argue that McQueen was full of rage that morning and was lying about being confronted by Westall.
Vujovich argued that McQueen began his attack as Robert Westall lay sleeping in his bed and when he woke and began to fight for his life, McQueen punched him in the face and viciously stabbed the elderly man to death.
McQueen said after Westall fell on the knife he was back on top of him holding his throat and that he [McQueen] “felt warm blood on his chest.”
But there was no clear explanation how, by only falling on the knife once, Westall could have suffered six slashes to his throat, four of them very deep.
Matt Vaughn, during his closing arguments had a theory as to how those wounds took place.
Jailhouse talk
Vaughn said comments that McQueen made while in jail amounted to little more than a “stupid kid saying stupid things.”
One of the comments was when he asked if he could be a trustee at the jail and was told that Lawrence County didn’t have trustees because they didn’t trust their inmates.
“But I’m trustworthy,” McQueen responded to corrections officer Matt Lawson.
“Murdering people don’t make you trustworthy,” Lawson testified was his response to McQueen.
“I don’t murder people—I murder ‘person’,” McQueen said, according to Lawson.
Lawson said sometime later he was guarding prisoners out in the recreation yard and overheard an inmate tell McQueen that he would never get released on a $3 million bond, to which McQueen allegedly said, “I kill one person and I am labeled for life.”
The prosecution argued McQueen’s statements were indicative of someone who had done exactly what he was charged with.
Word of a con
Another conversation Vaughn had to overcome was with an alleged friend of McQueen’s who said he asked him how to kill someone by cutting their throat.
Convicted thief Dane Martin said he was with McQueen in Vincennes, Ind., where the two had gone to hook up with a couple of girls, possibly a week or two before Bob Westall was murdered.
Martin testified that McQueen had told him he had been hired as a “hit man” and that because Martin had been in the infantry, McQueen asked him the best way to cut someone’s throat.
Martin detailed how he told McQueen to hold the head down instead of back while slicing the throat open.
“You don’t want blood spurting everywhere and this way you cut through the voice box and there is no screaming, so it is quiet,” Martin said.
Martin told how after the murder, he contacted first Mt. Carmel police, who told him to contact Lawrence County.
He said he traveled to Lawrenceville and was told an officer would talk to him but that one never showed up.
“I called them [Lawrenceville city police] back later and was told to contact state police,” Martin testified.
After doing so he said he left a message for Inspector Brown who later made contact with him.
Martin also testified that he had been transported to the witness stand by a sheriff’s vehicle and that he had an outstanding warrant for his arrest that he had just found out was quashed.
Vaughn made some headway pointing out that Martin not only benefited from his testimony but that a felony theft charge in another county would end better for him if he could show he cooperated in a murder trial.
“Well, yeah,” Martin reluctantly agreed.
“Nobody in this room would buy a car from Dane Martin,” Vaughn said. “Dane Martin doesn’t want to go to prison on his second felony theft charge, it’s that simple.”
“I rise in defense of Tyler McQueen”
When it came to his turn for closing arguments Vaughn surprised everybody in the room, especially jurors.
“It has become apparent to me that the ugly truth is that Tyler McQueen is guilty,” Vaughn said standing before jurors pointing across the courtroom at McQueen.
Observers could have heard a pin drop.
“That’s right, Tyler McQueen is guilty,” Vaughn said. “That may not be what many of you on the jury were expecting to hear, but those are the facts.”
Many of the jurors looked perplexed.
Many leaned forward in their seats.
Some looked at each other.
“He is guilty of Second Degree Murder,” Vaughn said. “NOT First Degree. We are in this courtroom because of a disagreement.
“The state has overreached and has over-charged.”
Vaughn explained that Second Degree did not mean that McQueen did not kill Westall, but that McQueen believed the circumstances were such that he felt deadly force was necessary, but that that belief was unreasonable.
Why sweat the small stuff?
“Mr. Vujovich said Tyler’s account of what happened didn’t match,” Vaughn said. “In fact it does and is borne out by the state’s own evidence.”
Vaughn recounted how McQueen told Inspector Brown that he was “all talk” and didn’t intend to go through with killing Westall, that he was going to go in and then tell Helen Marie that Westall wasn’t there.
“Tyler said he felt that Helen Marie was following him,” Vaughn said. “He drove to Bob Westall’s and went in through the window and found himself in the living room.
“He said he attempted to get away by going into an unused room but it was dark and he ended up in Bob Westall’s room and Bob saw him and came at him with a knife.”
Vaughn continued to hit on the angle that if McQueen admitted stabbing Westall, why would he lie about being attacked by Westall, who was surprised at finding an intruder in his home in the wee hours of the morning; and why he would lie about not being the one who pulled the telephone wires out of the service box.
“Just like Dr. Heidingsfelder testified, Robert Westall was alert enough to use his hands and that’s how he got defensive wounds,” Vaughn said to the jury. “Tyler McQueen suffered defensive wounds as well, which tells us that at one time he was on the wrong side of the knife.”
The “rage” issue
“The state kept talking to you about rage,” Vaughn told the jury. “Oh, there was rage on that morning alright, but I submit to you it didn’t come from Tyler McQueen who didn’t even know Bob Westall and that’s according to the state’s evidence.”
Vaughn argued that McQueen didn’t have enough knowledge about Westall one way or the other to have as much rage as Vujovich was crediting him with.
“It is the state’s evidence that Tyler was scared, it’s right there on the DVD,” Vaughn said. “It is the state’s evidence that shows he was afraid and that Helen Marie told him, ‘If you don’t get this right, your ass is next.’”
Vaughn said the DVD showed McQueen did something everybody has a right to do.
“And that’s to chicken out and that’s what he did,” Vaughn said. “He even said, ‘I am all talk,’ and that’s the state’s evidence.”
And as for the cash and car the prosecution hammered on, Vaughn said, “If he was so desperate to do this for $10,000 and an old car, then why did he leave Westall’s wallet with over $400 cash in it on the bedroom floor?”
Vaughn said it showed McQueen did in fact back out and that he was more interested in getting out of Westall’s apartment than he was in looking for loot.
Body moved
“The state’s evidence showed the body had been moved,” Vaughn said. “It had been positioned facing the window and the blinds had been raised as if someone wanted anybody passing by to see Bob there dead. It wasn’t Tyler McQueen, who just wanted out of there; and that’s supported by the state’s evidence.”
Vaughn said he felt that the feeling McQueen had that Helen Marie had followed him was probably correct.
“Rage? Yes, there is plenty evidence of rage, but not from Tyler McQueen who barely knew the man,” Vaughn repeated. “You have to ask yourself, who had that kind of rage for Bob Westall…? His niece did and Helen Marie—”
That’s when the state objected and Vaughn was not allowed to finish his thought.
Doing it AGAIN
Vaughn collected his thoughts and continued by telling jurors that back in the day when the state had the death penalty, they always seemed to dehumanize defendants to juries when they wanted a man put to death.
“They made him out to be less than human, made them out to be subhuman,” Vaughan told jurors, seeming to refer to Vujovich calling McQueen an ‘animal.’ “They compared them to something less than an animal. And they’re doing it AGAIN! He’s NOT subhuman!”
Vaughn told jurors if they found McQueen guilty of First Degree Murder that their work was not complete and that they then needed to go on and decide if McQueen was in fear, even if that fear was unreasonable.
Means, motive and opportunity
Once the jury retired to deliberate, Vaughn made a record with the court about what he would have said about Helen Marie if he had been allowed to continue.
“I would have argued that Helen Marie Westall followed Tyler to the apartment that morning,” Vaughn said. “Tyler testified Bob was still alive when he left. I believe Helen Marie went in because she knew she couldn’t trust Tyler to go through with it. I believe she delivered the deadly cuts to Bob’s throat and positioned the body and raised the blinds so everyone could see her hatred for this man, this worthless son-of-a-bitch.”
Vaughn argued that he felt he should have been allowed to continue at least to show that someone other than McQueen had the means, motive and opportunity to kill Robert Westall.
Vaughn had argued earlier that he wanted Helen Marie Westall to take the stand during the trial.
Even if she merely asserted her Fifth Amendment right not to testify, she would have had to do so in front of the jury.
Judge Robert Hopkins ruled it could give jurors an opinion [unsupported by evidence and not subject to cross examination] one way or the other [in favor of or to the detriment of McQueen’s case] about Helen Marie and her involvement or lack thereof and denied the request that she be forced to take the stand even if to assert her rights.
Tyler McQueen chose to exercise his right not to testify, as well.
Guilty First Degree
The 10-women/two-men jury was out just under five hours before returning a verdict of guilty of First Degree Murder.
After lengthy consultation with his client, Vaughn announced McQueen had chosen to let judge Hopkins decide whether or not the acts he had been convicted of reached the level of heinous or not, which plays into sentencing.
Following the verdict, Lawrence County State’s Attorney Chris Quick said he believed justice had been done for Robert Westall.
Vaughn also spoke with Disclosure following the verdict and said he was obviously disappointed, respected the judge’s rulings and mentioned the possibility of framing an argument or two for an appeal.
During finalization of the day’s events May 3, which didn’t take place until about 10 p.m. (the jury had delivered the verdict at about 8 p.m.), it was announced from the bench that sentencing for McQueen would take place June 20; since that time that date has been adjusted to June 28, which is pending a presentencing investigation.