Tim Leeds Havre Daily News tleeds@havredailynews.com
The murder trial of James Main Jr. Was expected to go the jury today, after the prosecution wrapped up its case Friday and the defense started calling its witnesses to testify that there were plots to shift the blame in the case to Main. Main is charged with deliberate homicide or accountability for deliberate homicide in the Nov. 25, 2006, death of Lloyd “Lucky” Kvelstad at the residence of Melissa “Missy” Snow in Havre. Kim A. Norquay Jr. Of Havre was convicted in November of charges deliberate homicide and tampering with physical evidence stemming from the case. He is scheduled to be sentenced on March 16. Snow pleaded guilty to a charge of tampering with evidence for cleaning up blood in her residence after Kvelstad was assaulted. She was sentenced for the offense to three years wi th the s tate Depar tment of Corrections with the last year suspended. Both the prosecution and the defense contend that there were two assaults on Kvelstad the night of the party, the day after Thanksgiving 2006, which started after an argument about the European settlement of the New World and issues l ike the American Indian Movement. Kvelstad was the only Caucasian at the party. All others there, including Main, Norquay and Snow, are Native American. Kvelstad’s body, with his pants pulled down around his ankles, his head and face severely beaten and a drawstring from a hooded sweatshirt tied tightly around his neck, was found by another man who was dropping his mother-in-law off at the residence after bars closed the night of Nov. 24. The prosecution contents that after the first fight ended and things calmed down, several witnesses left the residence. A seconWhich Main participated in or was accountable for, then occurred, which resulted in Kvelstad’s death, the prosecution alleges. The defense contends that Main was not a participant in the second assault, and the evidence shows that Norquay committed the assault. Nathan Oats testified that after he found the body and his wife called the police, Main tried to leave the residence and Oats restrained him. Oats testified that Norquay left the residence after Main tried to leave. Witnesses for the defense testified Friday that they heard blame was being shifted to Main. The defense has contended that the evidence links Norquay to the murder, and law enforcement and the prosecution has been trying to make the evidence fit Main’s guilt, rather than considering the evidence on its own merits. Several witnesses testified Friday that they heard Snow or Norquay tell them that the blame was going to be shifted to Main. Gabe Cheatam testified that, on two occasions, he was incarcerated in the Hill County Detention Center with Norquay and heard him bragging about killing Kvelstad, including bragging about raping the victim’s dead body. Cheatam said that when he asked about Main also being charged in the crime, Norquay became angry. “I did this myself,’” Cheatam said Norquay told him. Cheatam was in the detention center two times for violating conditions of his release for a felony charge of partner or family member offense. He is now under a five-year sentence with the state Department of Corrections. He confirmed questions by both the prosecution and defense that he had previously been sentenced for a charge of perjury. Cheatam testified that when he contacted the Havre Police Department after the first time Norquay told him about the crime, and when he contacted the Hill County Sheriff’s Office after the second time, nothing seemed to happen. “Nobody was taking what I said seriously,” Cheatam said. Under cross-examination by prosecuting attorney Dan Guzynski, Cheatam said he did have recorded interviews twice with the Hill County Sheriff’s Office about what he said he had heard. Cheatam was not called by the prosecution to testify in the Norquay trial. Cheatam also said he was threatened by Norquay, and later by two men in the parking lot of a local store, if he told anyone what Norquay had said. Cheatam said Norquay and the two men told him “the same thing will happen to you” and his family as happened to Kvelstad if he told the police what Norquay had said. Guzynski asked Cheatam about discrepancies in the testimony Cheatam said Norquay told him he used the big silver or gold fobs on the end of his sweatshirt drawstring to hold the string while he tied it around Kvelstad’s neck, and the fobs actually are black and smaller and why he delayed in reporting the threats against him and his family, and why he is testifying despite those threats. Cheatam testified that he is only repeating what Norquay told him, and that he is testifying because he thinks it is the right thing to do. Answering a question by defense attorney Kenneth Olson, he said he doesn’t know Main or anyone in his family and will get nothing out of his testimony. He is testifying because he thinks it is what he needs to do, Cheatam said. “I can’t stop reliving the stuff he told me, what he did to this guy,” Cheatam said. “Having sex with a dead guy, that doesn’t go away.” Other witnesses testified that they heard Snow say she was worried she would go to jail for a murder, and that Main had passed out before Norquay killed Kvelstad, or that Main was in another room while Norquay assaulted Kvelstad. Sheldon Flying testified that he was in the hotel room where Snow and Main and Billy The Boy were taken following being questioned on Nov. 25. He testified that Snow told him that she thought Norquay had killed Kvelstad, and that Main was in another room at the time. Snow previously testified that she had not talked to the witnesses called by the defense about the assault. Judge E. Wayne Phillips, who is presiding over the trial, told the jury Friday that he expected closing arguments to be made and the case turned over to the jury today.d assault, in
