ROCKWALL — Prosecutors began laying out their case Monday that former Kaufman County Justice of the Peace Eric Williams deserves the death penalty.
They say Williams set in a motion a premeditated plot to kill top prosecutor Mark Hasse and District Attorney Mike McLelland because he was determined to get revenge for prosecuting Williams over the theft of county computer monitors.
That conviction cost Williams both his job and his law license.
Until Monday, jurors had not been told about Hasse's death.
"You will see what lies beneath this façade of normality," lead special prosecutor Bill Wirskye told jurors. "You will see that there is a deep-seated rage fueled by his sense of self-superiority. Justice in this case is clear, and it demands a certain answer... a certain final answer."
It was the first day of testimony in the punishment phase of the trial. Last Thursday, the same jury found Williams guilty of capital murder in the murders of McLelland and his wife Cynthia.
The McLellands died in a "torrent of lead" at their Forney home over the Easter weekend in 2013. Police recovered 20 spent shell casings from the crime scene.
Hasse was gunned "in cold blood" two months earlier as he walked to the Kaufman County Courthouse.
TIMELINE: The Kaufman County murders
Wirskye told jurors they would hear that these murders not "an isolated life event," but rather "the peak in an arc of violence and anti-social psychopathic behavior of Eric Williams." He told jurors that they would hear about threats Williams had made to other people, indicating a pattern of "antisocial behavior" and "violent tendencies."
The prosecutor promised jurors that the evidence pointing to Williams as Hasse's killer was "just as damning and just as conclusive" as it was in the McLelland case.
The defense, meanwhile, will seek to offer evidence that Williams should be punished by life in prison.
The jury only has two options: The death penalty or life in prison.
Several witnesses testified Monday about what they saw the morning Hasse was gunned down.
Lenda Bush, a Terrell attorney, was driving to the courthouse when she a large man dressed in black and wearing what appeared to be a hoodie walk up to another man on the sidewalk. The two men appeared to shove one another.
"They were speaking to each other. I couldn't hear what was being said," she said. "I saw the larger man shoot the smaller man. Mark straightened himself up and there was more shoving, and at that point in time, the shooter put the gun to Mark's neck and shot. I counted three more shots."
There were additional shots, but Bush said did not know how many. The gunman then ran to his car, which did not have a license plate on front, she said.
Bush, a former police officer, briefly followed the car. She tried to dial 911, but she was so upset she couldn't enter the numbers correctly, so she turned around and returned to the mortally wounded Hasse.
"I got out of the car and I ran over to Mark, and when I saw Mark, I thought, 'It's a lawyer, and it's lawyer that I know,' but I didn't recognize him as Mark," Bush said. "And so somebody said, 'It's Mark.'"
Bush began CPR as Hasse struggled for air. She kept telling him that help was on the way.
Through an interpreter, auto body employee Martin Cerda recounted seeing a black-clad man with a gun in his hand walk up and grab Hasse by the jacket. He said Hasse told the gunman, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
Cerda said the gunman pointed the gun at Hasse's chest and shot him. Hasse fell to the ground.
"He emptied the gun on him," Cerda said.
Cerda said the gunman pulled out another gun and began firing in the area as he calmly walked away. Cerda said he believed the gunman was male because of the way he walked.
"I was scared," he said. "I was afraid that he might try to shoot me."
Patricia Luna, a former county employee, was working out in a nearby building when she heard a weird noise. She turned off the music and looked out the window. She said she saw a person dressed in black firing in the air and walking slowly away, and then getting into the passenger seat of a car. She told jurors that the person was wearing what she believed to be a bulletproof vest and combat-style boots. She could not tell if the person with the weapon was a man or a woman.
Luna came out of the building and walked over to the man who had been shot. Bush was already doing chest compressions on Hasse.
"There was a lot of blood," Luna said. "I've never seen that much blood in my life, and I just kept a-staring at him. I couldn't believe it. And that morning, why it happened?"
She said she kept staring at Hasse, shocked at what she was seeing.
"I said, 'Who is this person?' And it was Mark Hasse, and he was gone," Luna said, tearfully.
Kaufman police officer Jason Stastny was on another call when Hasse was shot. He testified that he heard five shots... then a pause... then three more.
"It was methodical," Stastny said.
Jurors Monday also saw a graphic dash cam video from an officer's squad car
As Stastny runs over, Bush tells him, "He's not breathing at all."
"There you go, Buddy. Keep breathing for me," Stastny tells Hasse. "Come on, Mark. Come on Mark."
Over and over, Stastny tells Hasse to keep breathing... that help is on the way. Hasse was later pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. He had been shot five times, including once in the head, arm and back. Hasse was armed, but did not have a chance to draw his weapon.
Suspicion immediately turned to Williams.
Kaufman County Sheriff's Deputy Barry Dyson said the sheriff told him to "go find Eric Williams."
He said Williams answered the door wearing a wind suit and had his arm in a sling. He said Williams shut the door as he stepped outside.
"He asked me why I was there. I explained that Mark Hasse had been shot and killed," Dyson said. "He appeared to be shocked. He kind of gasped."
Dyson said Williams told him that he had gone to pick up medicine that morning for his wife, who was bedridden and in a coma. The deputy said he collected a gunshot residue test from Williams which was negative.
"He was a little sweaty," Dyson said. "He appeared to just be kind of flushed."
In court, jurors heard testimony about records from a storage unit that showed that Williams entered and left the facility on the day of the Hasse killing, and then returned and left again.
The same thing had occurred on the day of the McLelland killings.
Jurors also heard testimony that Williams purchased the Hasse getaway vehicle — a 2001 Mercury Sable — using an alias, just four days before the prosecutor was slain. The seller testified that he sold the car for $1,500. The seller told jurors that the man told him he was buying it for his daughter, but didn't seem interested in the car's potential repair issues.
The vehicle's seller was unable to pick Williams out of a lineup.
Storage lot records show that the sable was found abandoned at the facility and subsequently towed. Investigators later recovered the vehicle and found shooter's earplugs in it with Williams' DNA on them.
Jurors also heard for the first time that two guns and a black "Grim Reaper" mask had been recovered from Lake Tawakoni. Ballistics testing showed that one of the guns — a black Ruger — was the weapon used to kill Mark Hasse. The other gun had been purchased by Williams' wife, Kim.
Investigators were led to search in that location by Kim Williams. She told the authorities that the items were dumped in the lake on the day the McLellands were killed.
Almost a month after Hasse's killing, Williams made a false report to Crime Stoppers about the Hasse killing, testimony showed. Williams wrote that a man named "Bull" had done a hit on a prosecutor and had fled to Mexico, in what prosecutors say was an effort to throw investigators off the trail.
Police linked the tip to e-mail because it was written on a scrap of paper found during a search of the Williams home.
On that same scrap of paper was another tip number. That tip had been made on the day after the McLelland murders. Prosecutors previously revealed that Williams had threatened more attacks if his demands were not met.
Jurors learned today that the same e-mail specified the type of ammunition and gun used in the Hasse killing — information that had not been made public at that point.
Williams was tried and convicted on the indictment for the death of Cynthia McLelland. The indictment included two charges that justified seeking the death penalty; one was that Williams killed her while committing a burglary, which is a felony. The other was that he killed her along with another person, her husband, Mike McLelland.
Williams' estranged wife, Kim, also faces three charges of capital murder. She has not yet been tried.
