Different stories on Johnson murder

Testimony Thursday of a witness for the prosecution in the Shane Johnson murder trial conflicted with testimony of another prosecution witness after a nearly hour-long pretrial discussion of issues including that testimony.

Johnson is accused of murdering his brother Nov. 9 in their Havre residence on 2nd Avenue by shooting him following a fight in the living room of the house in which Travis Johnson punched Shane Johnson in the nose, causing it to bleed profusely.

The defense contends that Shane Johnson tried to get away from the fight, but Travis Johnson followed him and kept attacking him, including trying to shove him down the stairs to the basement, and finally came into Shane Johnson’s room, reached under his bed and took out the gun with which he himself was shot.

Shane Johnson was fighting for his life, trying to get control of the gun, when Travis Johnson was shot, the defense contends.

Wednesday, the men’s mother, Donna Biem, testified that Travis Johnson was falling-down drunk when he arrived home that afternoon, and that he was angry when she and their stepfather, Robert Biem, and his brother left for a birthday celebration because she would not let him come along in his drunken state.

Prosecutor Catherine Truman, an assistant state attorney general, told Biem that that testimony contradicted what was in the transcript of an interview Havre Police Officer Ryan Pearson conducted Nov. 9. Biem said she did not recall being interviewed by Pierson.

Thursday morning, District Judge Dan Boucher said there may have been some confusion about his ruling on an objection by the defense when Truman continued to question Biem about the alleged interview. He said Truman should have been allowed to show Biem the transcript to see if it would refresh her memory, but she did not. He said the prosecution could recall Biem to do so if it wished.

Truman said she wished to do so, saying Biem’s testimony Wednesday was the first time she had heard those comments.

“I definitely was caught off guard, and I did have the transcript in hand,” she said.

Defense attorney Randi Hood said that should not be allowed, because if the witness says she does not recall the interview, “it is over.”

She also objected to allowing the prosecution to call Pearson to the stand, saying his testimony about what Biem said in the audio- and video-recorded interview would be hearsay and that there was no foundation for his testimony.

Boucher noted her objection but allowed Pearson’s testimony.

Pearson read Biem’s comments from transcripts of two of the three interviews he conducted of her Nov. 9.

Pearson read how Biem said Travis Johnson arrived home, took three or four bags out of the car in which he received a ride to the residence and walked up the stairs to the residence. Those comments did not mention taking half-an-hour to get the bags out of the car and how he dropped them, and did not mention his taking 15 minutes to stumble up the stairs to the home, as her testimony Wednesday did.

The statements Pearson read also said Travis Johnson seemed “happy,” and that she thought he was joking about going to the birthday celebration because he still was in work clothes.

Pearson read that Biem told him she was concerned about problems arising if Travis Johnson went with them mainly because the mother of a woman he had recently broken up with would be there, but that she was not concerned that he would cause problems.

The jury also heard testimony from scientists at the Montana State Crime Lab, who listed findings of tests for blood and DNA analysis of evidence from the crime scene, and from crime-scene investigator Mark Hilyard of the state Department of Criminal Investigation.

Hilyard testified that most of the blood found in the residence was of “passive drops,” as of drops of blood dripping from a bloody nose or a cut, falling straight down to the floor. He discussed a series of photographs showing what he called passive drops from the living room through the kitchen and down the stairs into Shane Johnson’s room.

Hilyard testifed about a portion of the 492 photographs he took of the crime scene and of his investigation.

One showed the bed in Shane Johnson’s room with the closed but still unzipped case of the Browning Buckmark .22 caliber pistol with which Travis Johnson was shot, next to an envelope from the Browning company, some batteries, an opened but almost full bottle of R&R whiskey, and a magazine from the pistol.

He also showed a series of photographs from Shane Johnson’s room depicting discovery of the spent cartridges from the four shots known to be fired, including one which had been covered by some clothing and then a chair.

He showed photographs of his measuring the trajectory of a bullet that went through a series of coats hung on the door of Travis Johnson’s room and through the door before hitting the wall, with the spent bullet found on the floor below. The door was opened and pressed close to the wall, with the trajectory rod pointing at an angle down toward the bottom of the opposite wall in the entry to the bedroom.

After a lengthy cross-examination in which Randi Hood repeatedly asked if the trajectory showed the gun could have been in the hallway when it was fired, he told Hill County Attorney Gina Dahl in her re-direct that it could not.

The best indication that his measurement was correct was the hole through the door itself, which matched up with the mark in the wall, Hilyard testified, saying “That’s irrefutable … .

“It had to happen in Travis’s room,” he said.