They played it fast and loose."
SUMMERVILLE, Ga. -- On Monday afternoon, before jurors could hear opening arguments in Deborah Elaine Wilkins' murder trial, lawyers for the state and the defense argued about whether those jurors could hear Wilkins' statements from June 14. Earlier that day, investigators say, Wilkins shot and killed her boyfriend, William Robert Packer.
When deputies arrived, they said Wilkins was drunk, stumbling over her feet and her words. She said Packer was going to kill her because she "knew too much." She also said Packer's defense attorney swindled him out of money and that methamphetamine is bad.
Deborah WilkinsAnd several times, according to several deputies, she said "blacks did it." Wilkins was talking about the family of James "Pee Wee" Kirby, a black man down the road whom Packer killed in October 2010. A jury acquitted him in that case.
Wilkins' attorney, Public Defender David Dunn, told Superior Court Judge Kristina Cook Graham on Monday that the jury should not be able to hear many of Wilkins' statements from the hours after Packer's death because investigators never read Miranda rights to her. Although she was not charged with a crime for another six days, Dunn said Wilkins was "functionally in custody" because deputies drove her to the Chattooga County Sheriff's Office that day and stayed with her until 2 a.m.
That's when someone finally told her she was allowed to leave, Dunn said, and that's when she stopped talking.
"They played it fast and loose," he said of the investigators.
Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit District Attorney Herbert "Buzz" Franklin said Wilkins knew the whole time that she was not under arrest. Georgia Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Joe Montgomery told her she didn't have to answer questions if she didn't want.
Graham sided with Franklin. She also ruled that Dunn could tell the jury that Packer grew marijuana on his front porch. In addition, lawyers on both sides said they had no problem with Graham hearing the case even though Wilkins criticized Graham's father, attorney Bobby Lee Cook, during her police interrogation.
With pretrial matters out of the way, attorneys are set to make opening arguments today at 9 a.m., weather permitting.
Contact Staff Writer Tyler Jett at tjett@times freepress.com or 423-757-6476.
From the future, March 4, 2015: