In
their opening statements at the boys' murder trial, the defense
attorneys also said the state lacks physical evidence, such as blood
stains, linking Alex and Derek King, then 12 and 13, to the Nov. 26
killing of Terry King, 40.
The boys, who are being tried as adults, now are 13 and 14.
Derek is accused of literally knocking out his father's brains
with an aluminum baseball bat while Alex is charged with putting his
brother up to it, Assistant State Attorney David Rimmer said in his
opening.
Rimmer last week prosecuted Ricky Chavis, 40, a friend of the
victim and convicted child molester, for the same crime before a
different jury. His verdict was returned Friday but will remain
sealed until the King brothers' trial is completed.
"You will hear that Derek King had no motive to kill his father
but Ricky Chavis did," said Sharon Potter, one Derek's lawyers.
Secret
Victimization
That motive was to prevent Terry King from finding out Chavis was
having sex with Alex, said the younger boy's lawyer, James Stokes.
"He knows if that relationship is discovered he will go to jail
forever," Stokes said.
The King brothers testified against Chavis last week, but Chavis
has refused to take the stand against them. He appeared in court
briefly Tuesday to verify he was exercising his Fifth Amendment
right against self-incrimination.
Chavis is facing up to two more trials. One will be on a single
count of committing a lewd and lascivious act against Alex. The
other would be on charges of accessory after the fact to murder and
evidence tampering. The latter counts will be dropped if the verdict
is guilty in his murder trial.
All three defendants would get a mandatory sentence of life in
prison without parole if convicted of first-degree murder. Each also
is charged with arson.
Firefighters found the victim's body inside his burning home in
nearby Cantonment. The blaze melted the bat but did not spread to
where the body was.
Two Theories of
Murder
The first prosecution witness was Nancy Lay. She and her husband,
Frank Lay, a high school principal, had been Derek's guardians for
more than six years until he returned to his father nearly two
months before the killing.
Nancy Lay said Derek took medication for attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder.
The Lays caught Derek two days before the killing when he
returned to their neighborhood to visit a girl after both brothers
had run away from home. Derek begged not to be returned home and
said his brother had a plan to kill their father, Nancy Lay said.
Testimony will continue Wednesday.
The boys initially told Escambia County sheriff's deputies they
had killed their father for fear he would spank them for running
away.
In testimony last week, the brothers told a different story. They
said Chavis got them while their father was asleep and then killed
him while the boys hid in the trunk of Chavis' car.
Chavis denies the killing, but he has told investigators he
picked up the boys when they called him immediately afterward, took
them to his Pensacola home, washed their clothing and hid them from
police until the next day.
Stokes said the boys, who had gone to Chavis' house when they ran
away, took the blame because he told them that, as juveniles, they
would get off and then they could live with him.
They wanted to stay with him because he let them do things their
father, a single parent, had forbidden: watch television, play video
games, smoke marijuana and, in the case of Alex, have sex with
Chavis, Stokes said. 
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