Testimonies in murder case don't agree

Witnesses in a capital murder case on Friday offered differing versions of what happened the day former University of Utah student Kang Ho Lee was fatally gunned down while working at the family-owned Sunshine Market in Salt Lake City.

Marcus Lamont Crocker, 27, is charged with capital murder and, if convicted, could face the death penalty.

Friday was the second of a three-day preliminary hearing before 3rd District Judge Sheila McCleve, who will decide whether Crocker will stand trial for the slaying.

Two witnesses offered testimony that conflicted with what another witness, Melissa Angela Chacon, 32, had told the court Thursday.

Melissa Christina Caputo, 29, Crocker's former girlfriend, contradicted testimony that Chacon gave about planning a robbery, who handled the gun, which stores were scoped out and the sequence of events on the night in 2001 when Lee, 24, was killed.

Specifically, Caputo testified she did not remember going out to eat at a fancy Salt Lake restaurant after the crime — a meal that Chacon had described in detail, right down to the entrees ordered and who left the tip. Caputo said she had told someone else about the restaurant simply to establish an alibi.

Caputo also testified that Chacon knew all along that she was to take the gun after the robbery and return it to its owner, Julian Treyvail Hayden, 26, which contradicted what Chacon had said.

Caputo, Chacon and Hayden all are facing first-degree felony murder and other charges in this case.

Caputo said Crocker was "real nervous' after the robbery and told her he thought he had killed someone.

Throughout her lengthy stint on the witness stand, Caputo repeatedly said she couldn't recall when asked questions about the killing. Asked at one point by one of Crocker's defense attorneys, Scott Williams, about her inability to remember things, Caputo blurted out that "it is helpful in my defense."

However, she said a previous plea bargain fell through because she had lied and also consumed illegal drugs, which violated two conditions of the agreement.

Before Hayden took the stand, his defense attorney, Ron Yengich, outlined a plea bargain in which Hayden pleads guilty to an undetermined felony and must testify truthfully in the Lee case. In return, prosecutors will recommend to a judge that Hayden not be sent to prison.

Hayden, who admitted to being a former gang member, said he previously lied to investigators, knew it was wrong to give the gun to Crocker, who was on parole at the time, and also admitted illegally dumping the gun into Deer Creek Reservoir.

He also testified it was Chacon, not Crocker, who handed the gun back to him after the robbery.

Hayden said he is thinking more clearly now that he has broken ties with his gang and is willing to accept responsibility for what he did.

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E-mail: lindat@desnews.com