Another Bad One in Minneapolis-St. Paul

Hennepin County / 'Ridiculous' choices but not a killer, lawyer says
First testimony today for Matthews, accused of strangling his girlfriend

By David Hanners
dhanners@pioneerpress.com
Article Last Updated: 10/16/2008 10:21:51 PM CDT


Zachery Otis Matthews is guilty of making "horrific, cruel, unthinkable decisions," but he isn't guilty of killing his former girlfriend last December, his lawyer told a jury Thursday.


In his opening statement in Matthews' murder trial, defense lawyer Michael Colich told jurors that when his client arrived home and found Kristine Catheryn Larson's body stuffed in a closet, he panicked and committed one bad decision after another.


Chief among those missteps: He put the St. Paul Park woman's body in her car, drove it to Minneapolis, parked it in an alley, set it afire and then lied to police about it.


"Zachery Matthews made horrible mistakes in the case," Colich said. "But what the state will not be able to prove to you beyond a reasonable doubt is that Zack killed Kristine Larson.
"

Assistant Hennepin County Attorney Stephen Redding had hinted at the someone-else-did-it defense in his opening statement and said Matthews killed Larson because she'd found a new boyfriend.


"Most murders are committed by people who know their victims," he said. "There is no Mr. X. There is no bushy-haired stranger. There is only Zachery Otis Matthews.
"

Matthews had fathered a child by Larson and had abused her, he said. And strangling her with a shoelace — pulled so tightly it was embedded in the skin of her neck — was the definitive act of abuse, the prosecutor told jurors.


"When his efforts to dominate and control failed, he exercised the ultimate control and domination. He murdered her," Redding said.


Matthews, 22, of St. Paul, sat attentively during both opening statements. While the prosecutor spoke, the defendant at times jotted notes on a legal pad and whispered once or twice to his attorney.


Redding and colleague Therese Galatowitsch will begin presenting their evidence this morning. Testimony in the trial, before Hennepin County District Judge Lloyd Zimmerman, is expected to last a week.


Matthews, originally charged with second-degree murder in Larson's death, was indicted later on two counts of first-degree murder. One count alleges he killed with premeditation; the other alleges he killed in an act of domestic abuse.


Dna On The Shoelace / On the evening of Dec. 19, a Minneapolis woman arrived home from work and pulled into her alley driveway to find Larson's Buick parked in it. When she looked into the car, she saw flames, and when she and a neighbor put out the flames, they discovered Larson's body.


Someone had placed her face-down in the back seat, then set the car on fire using pages torn from a phone book as fuel. During jury selection, lawyers asked potential jurors whether they would have problems viewing graphic crime-scene photos.


Police questioned Matthews the next day, and he said he'd spent the entire previous evening in his apartment. But when police checked his cell phone records, they showed it had been used to make two calls through a cellular tower near where the body was found. Later, they would find Matthews' DNA in skin cells left on the ends of the shoestring around Larson's neck.


Before police confronted Matthews with the information, he had spent time grieving with Larson's family. They noted that, overcome with emotion, he had fallen to the floor in tears.


"We all comforted him. He comforted us," one of Larson's sisters said afterward.


When investigators questioned Matthews again, he changed his story. This time, he said he had come home and found Larson's body stuffed in a closet in his apartment. She was already dead, he said.


In his opening statement, Colich said Matthews panicked when he discovered Larson's body and responded with "a ridiculous thought process." As for the DNA on the shoelace, Matthews left it when he grabbed it and tried to undo it, Colich said.


Matthews left the couple's then-2-year-old son unattended in his apartment while he disposed of the body.


At the time of Matthews' arrest, he was three months shy of completing a year of court conditions imposed in a fifth-degree assault case in Washington County. Among the conditions: undergo anger-management counseling, submit to a chemical dependency evaluation and avoid any contact with Larson's mother, Deborah Tilson.


Tilson had sued Matthews in Washington County court in Stillwater for custody of the child. An evidentiary hearing in the case is scheduled for Dec. 18.


Family members had said Larson and Matthews had a sometimes-good, sometimes-rocky relationship. They had lived together for a time, but she moved back in with her mother about six months before her death.


At the time of her death, Larson was taking bartending classes, and she had talked to family members about one day becoming a nurse or a therapist.


David Hanners can be reached at 612-338-6516.