BRENTWOOD — It is up to a jury to decide whether the killing of a Danville landlord by his tenant was part of a plan or an impulsive act of rage.
Defense attorneys for Paul McDonald and state prosecutors concluded their arguments in McDonald's murder trial in Rockingham County Superior Court yesterday. The case was given to the jury early in the afternoon. Jurors will return to deliberations this morning.
McDonald, 50, faces one count of first-degree murder and two alternate counts of second-degree murder. Prosecutors allege the killing of Richard Wilcox, 54, was part of a scheme concocted by McDonald to steal Wilcox's new pickup truck and exchange it for a Shovelhead Harley-Davidson motorcycle he had been dreaming about.
During the trial, McDonald's defense team admitted that McDonald killed his landlord — and that he had a plan to steal the truck and exchange it for the motorcycle. But public defender Julia Nye told jurors the two were not connected.
McDonald fell asleep in the living room of the Kingston Road home and woke up in the early morning hours of June 12, 2008, to find Wilcox performing oral sex on him, Nye said. It sent her client into a furious rage, she said.
"The bloodshed and the killing that happened in that home was the result of abject, out-of-control rage, not careful planning," she said to the jury during closing arguments yesterday.
Prior to the killing, McDonald introduced himself to a Barrington motorcycle dealer as Richard Wilcox, and worked out a deal to exchange Wilcox's new Toyota Tacoma for an older truck, $3,000 in cash, and a Shovelhead Harley-Davidson motorcycle that needed repairs. McDonald eventually stole the title of the truck and gave it to the dealer as collateral.
State prosecutor Will Delker told the jury there was no evidence to back up McDonald's claim that Wilcox tried to rape him, and that story was just another in a series of lies surrounding the killing.
After he killed Wilcox, McDonald traded the truck with the Barrington dealer, dropped the Harley-Davidson off at a Rochester shop for repairs, and fled to Vermont, where he registered the older truck under his brother's name. When his ex-wife called him, McDonald told her he was working in Connecticut.
Delker asked jurors to "put an end to his lies."
"He stole Rick's dignity," Delker said. "He dragged Rick's name through the mud and tried to destroy the reputation of a good man who worked hard."
The killing was motivated by McDonald's obsession with obtaining a motorcycle he couldn't afford, Delker said.
"He had no job and no money, but he had big dreams of a fancy Shovelhead Harley," Delker said.
Wilcox was killed either in the evening hours of June 11 or early morning of June 12. His body was found hidden beneath a tarp in the corner of the basement of his Danville home on June 13, when police went there for a well-being check. He had 19 lacerations to his head, described by prosecutors as "chop wounds."
State medical examiner Jennie Duval testified that the injuries might have been caused by the narrow shaft of a hammer that was found locked away in McDonald's room.
The jury will continue deliberations at 9 a.m. today.
