By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor
Unless something dramatic happens in the next day or two, Brandon Chaney will be the only one of the two defendants testifying in the ongoing Steve Bushaw murder trial.
Chaney (shown at left in January 2011 WSB photo) was on the stand all day Monday, beginning the fourth week of testimony before a jury in King County Superior Court Judge Joan DuBuque‘s courtroom, which is likely to be the last – as few as two more witnesses remain, and the lawyers and judge are already talking extensively about how to craft jury instructions.
Monday began with prosecutor Jeff Baird formally resting his case, before jurors entered, so that a motion could be argued. It highlighted some tension that’s perhaps inherent in the double-defendant, single-case format.
Chaney’s lawyer Jim Roe moved to “sever” the cases, saying that some testimony regarding the other defendant, Bryce Huber, couldn’t help but prejudice the jury against his client, even though they are to be instructed against that. If Huber were testifying, Roe said, he wouldn’t be making the motion. “Mr. Huber is condemning (Chaney) as much as Mr. Sylve” – the confessed shooter who testified earlier in the trial – “but we were able to crossexamine Sylve and point out how he lied, lied, and lied again. With Mr. Huber’s case, we have been denied of that, with (no) opportunity to ferret out what the truth is.” Roe said that if he could cross-examine Huber, “there would be hours … I have a whole three-ring binder about what to ask Mr. Huber.”
The prosecutor said the statements to which Roe referred “do not name Mr. Chaney (and make) no reference to Mr. Chaney.” Ultimately, Judge DuBuque denied the motion, which if granted would not only have separated the defendants’ cases, but would have ended these proceedings with a mistrial.
Then the jury was brought out – and after Baird reiterated, for their ears, that he had rested his case, Roe called Chaney to the stand.
His day of testimony began with some exposition on how he knows others who have figured into the case, either as defendants or as those who have been mentioned in various versions of what transpired. The person we’re describing only as the home-invasion-robbery victim – with whom Chaney lived at the time – was a friend from church and sports in Yakima, where many of the case’s key figures are from. Through the robbery victim, Chaney met co-defendant Huber. As for the confessed triggermen, Chaney said he knew John Sylve because Sylve’s younger brother Jason was a friend of his, and he knew Danny O’Neal because they went to high school together and discovered they “might be related.”
Chaney talked about his business, a barber shop in Tukwila called Hi-Def Cuts, opened four years ago, acknowledging he was “very proud” of it.
Then Roe pointed him to a key date in the case – January 19, 2009, the night of the home-invasion robbery at the place where Chaney was living with a friend. He explained he’d moved in there a few months earlier because he couldn’t handle the mortgage on his own home. Another man was living at Chaney’s friend’s home at the time but was told by the friend to leave, Chaney testified, in mid-December 2008, because of rent-payment problems.
On January 19th, Chaney said, he was watching TV with one of his barber-shop co-workers and with his girlfriend Jamerica (who is expected to testify), when “a couple of guys knocked on the door, came in, demanded money, and asked ‘where’s it at, we know its here.’ They beat (friend) pretty badly, I was beat a little but not too severely.” The robbers wore masks and had semi-automatic guns, he said. Both Chaney and his friend (same person we have referred to in other articles as “the home-invasion-robbery victim”) went to the hospital; Chaney was out the same night.
Asked about marijuana as the motive for the robbery, Chaney said he didn’t know his friend was a dealer, though they had smoked it together, and reiterated that the robbers said “where’s IT at,” without saying what “it” was. Asked who he suspected in the robbery, he said – as an earlier witness had reported he said – he thought it was the former roommate kicked out for rent-paying trouble, since the circumstances were difficult and the time frame was relatively recent. Chaney didn’t think either of the robbers was that man, but they were on the phone with someone who was instructing them where to look in the house.
But the main victim, the friend whose home it was, had different suspicions. A few days later, Chaney testified, that friend said he suspected “a guy named Steve.”
That night, Chaney said, after he got out of the hospital, he went back to the scene of the robbery, grabbed his belongings, and went to stay with girlfriend Jamerica, never moving back into the house: “I was scared, I didn’t want anything to do with that house after that.” His friend didn’t go back either, he said.
On Super Bowl Sunday, he said he watched the game on a 42-inch flat-screen at Danny O’Neal’s place, to which he had brought the friend we’ve referred to in previous coverage as the “other man.” O’Neal worked in IT at Costco, Chaney said. Roe asked him to sketch out O’Neal’s apartment, which he stood up to do on a large pad of white paper between the witness stand and the jury box; relevant to earlier testimony, he said the apartment has a “solid wall” between its living room and kitchen.
Since “who called/texted who” has been a big theme in the trial, Roe asked about that, and Chaney described texting/calling many people during the game, to talk about the game. That’s when, he said, his friend the home-invasion victim called to ask him to pick up Sylve at the airport. Chaney said his friend didn’t say why Sylve was coming to town, but once the logistics were settled, agreed to meet Chaney and Sylve at the barber shop “since it was close to the airport.” O’Neal and “the other man” went along to pick up Sylve “just to ride, didn’t have anything better to do, I guess.” Chaney said it was difficult to find Sylve at the airport, so he called his friend, who in turn called Sylve, and myriad back-and-forth calls ensued until, he said, his friend gave Sylve Chaney’s number.
According to Chaney, Sylve had no luggage; he was on his way to San Antonio, where he “had a job” and was going to stay with his brother; he didn’t say anything about a weapon. The four men headed to Chaney’s barber shop a few minutes away, and went in to wait for Chaney’s friend to come pick up Sylve. Asked if there was any talk of the January 19th home invasion, Chaney said no. HIs friend arrived after about 10 minutes but stayed outside, and Sylve went out to get into the car. The group decided it was time to go as well, and Chaney said they decided to go “down the street” to the Riverside Casino to have a drink. He recalled Sylve getting a drink to take out to the home-invasion-robbery victim, who was still out in the car (Chaney had mentioned earlier that the man’s daughter was in her car seat in the back seat).
They all went back to O’Neal’s place. Still no talk of weapons nor of the January 19th robbery, Chaney said. But the robbery victim asked him if he could take Sylve back to the airport, since he had to take his daughter home.
So how did they decide to go to West Seattle and Talarico’s? Roe asked.
Sylve said “let’s go out,” Chaney said: “I didn’t know who was open on a Sunday night.” So he said he called Huber because he had been a club promoter and “would probably know what was going on on a Sunday night … He said, ‘I have a couple girls with me, we’re going to this bar in West Seattle’.” Chaney said he’d never been to the bar – though he had lived for a while in West Seattle (where the home-invasion robbery happened), so he figured he could find it.
At that point, he said, he wanted O’Neal to drive because he was “tired of driving all day, burning up my gas, and I still had to take (other man) to Kent.’ He wound up driving O’Neal’s car, which he said he had driven many times before because he was the least intoxicated person.
“Any discussion of a drive-by shooting?” asked Roe.
“No.”
While they were on I-5, before Boeing Field, Chaney testified, Huber called and “said this guy Steve was coming to the bar for drinks and he was going to question him about the home-invasion robbery.” He said he shared that news with everyone in the car.
They took longer than expected to get to The Junction, he said, because he took the wrong exit off the West Seattle Bridge, getting off at Delridge, and taking back streets. Huber called to ask there whereabouts, and directed them to the Erskine/Edmunds/California 7-11, where he met them. Chaney said he could see the girls in Huber’s car, and that Huber “pointed to where the bar (Talarico’s) was. I asked him where his boy (Bushaw) was. He said, ‘he’ll be inside with me’.”
Roe brought up a large map that had been used earlier, showing the 4700 block of California. Chaney said Huber had directed them to the parking lot behind the west side of the street, with the “walkway going right to the bar”; he said he was on the phone with his girlfriend when the other three – O’Neal, Sylve, and the “other man” – got out and “moved toward the breezeway.” Chaney said he stayed back because, after his phone call, his phone was dying, so he plugged it into the car charger, “to at least put a bar on it.”
Before the others left the car, was there a discussion about a call coming in regarding what to do next? Roe asked. Chaney said no. Asked again about any knowledge of or presence of guns, Chaney did allow that he knew Danny O’Neal had a weapons license and “had guns for years.” He said he called O’Neal, intending to tell him to order him a drink because he’d be delayed a few minutes going into the bar. A call came in “from the phone Bryce had been using” – and then, he said, his phone went dead, and he didn’t use it again until the next day.
Chaney said he was getting ready to get out of the car when first the other man came “trotting” back toward it, and then he heard shots. “It scared me, it was loud, a real loud echo, so I got back in the car, I said ‘what’s going on,’ (the other man) said, ‘I don’t know, somebody’s shooting’.” Then, he said, O’Neal and Sylve ran up to the car: “I said, ‘what’s going on,’ Sylve just said, ‘GO.'”
He said he “drove south” a while and left West Seattle “the back way. … Once we got away from the scene, I asked what happened. John said he shot at a guy, but didn’t think he hit him. O’Neal said the same thing.”
“What did you think they meant?” asked Roe.
“That they shot Steve, shot at him but missed.”
“How did you know it was Steve?” asked Roe.
“It was the guy that was with Bryce.” Chaney said he was shocked, panicked, asking questions like “What did you guys do that for?” and that Sylve told him to “calm down, we didn’t hit him, you didn’t do anything, just relax.”
Then they went back to O’Neal’s house. Chaney described himself as still being “frantic” and swearing. He also said the other man was “scared and mad and upset.” He dropped that man off before taking Sylve to the airport, where he said he told him “don’t ever call me again.” He said he never talked to Huber again, either, and didn’t see him again until after they had all been arrested. He said he spoke to the home-invasion victim “within a day or two” and “told him what those guys had done.”
Chaney then acknowledged “Yes, I lied to police” claiming the other man had suggested they should tell the same story, that they weren’t there, and hadn’t been to Talarico’s. “I panicked, I had never been in any trouble before .. I made a stupid decision and lied to the police.”
“Why did you tell Detective Cooper all those lies?” asked Roe.
“I was scared and I wasn’t sure how to handle the situation. I knew who had done the shooting and I panicked and made a dumb decision. I was hoping it would go away, I guess, and I wouldn’t have to deal with it.”
“When did you realize Steve Bushaw had been killed?” asked Roe.
“I woke up the next day and saw it on Northwest Cable News. My heart just sank. I couldn’t believe I was involved in something like this, somebody had actually gotten killed, I didn’t know what to do.”
Roe continued, “That night when you went to Talarico’s, did you think Steve Bushaw was going to be killed? Did you think he was going to be questioned?”
Chaney: “I told (Huber), ‘you need to ask him about the two guys who broke in’.” Roe asked, “Did you think you’d have a chance to talk to him (Bushaw) yourself?” Chaney: “I thought it was possible.”
“When did you first learn that O’Neal and Sylve both had guns?”
“When they got in the car and said they had shot (Bushaw).” He said he didn’t see what happened to the guns.
Close to the start of his cross-examination, prosecutor Baird asked Chaney, “You discovered the next day that Mr. Huber had lost his friend Steve. Did you feel maybe you should reach out and talk to Mr. Huber about that?”
“I was panicked,” said Chaney. “I didn’t know what to do, so I didn’t want to be reaching out to anybody.”
Baird revisited the issue of the January 19th robbery, and asked Chaney if the home-invasion victim had called him from the hospital. “I don’t believe so,” said Chaney. Baird then called his attention to phone records showing the robbery victim left him a voice-mail message the afternoon after the robbery. And he asked if the victim was “fixated” on the robbery – “would you say obsessed?” “Well,” Chaney replied, “he wanted to find out who broke into the house. I talked to him about it a couple different times.”
Baird also sought to clarify the relationship between Chaney and Huber – “before the robbery on January 19th, Mr. Huber wasn’t a close friend of yours?” “I wouldn’t say close, but we were friends,” replied Chaney. “He came to the house frequently and played video games with (Chaney and the home-invasion victim).”
And while, questioned by Baird, Chaney reiterated he didn’t know the victim had been selling marijuana, he acknowledged he did know he had done so in the past. The prosecutor subseuently ran through another list of who-called-who-when records.
He asked Chaney about a trip to Yakima on February 5th. He acknowledged going there with O’Neal. “So you weren’t afraid of him, though you knew he had shot at someone?” Baird asked, then inquiring if Chaney had urged O’Neal to “turn himself in.”
“No, I can’t say that,” Chaney replied.
Baird: “Isn’t it true you talked about whether you were going to get away with it?”
Chaney: “No.”
Baird. “You weren’t worried?”
Chaney: “I was worried I’d be implicated.” More than three months went by, but he testified he didn’t think he wouldn’t ever be questioned – “Why not?” asked Baird. “Because (the other man) had been questioned,” Chaney replied. And he acknowledged he originally told police he hadn’t been in West Seattle because he “didn’t think they could prove it,” as the prosecutor phrased it.
But Chaney continued to insist that they had gone to Talarico’s “to get drinks … and Bryce talking to his thief (Bushaw) was secondary.”
Wasn’t that a long way to go from their South King County homes, to get drinks? Baird asked.
“No, we go downtown all the time,” Chaney answered. He also denied discussing “a plan” while everyone was at the Erskine/Edmunds 7-11. And he denied saying that the other man was “talking tough” while they were at the casino, goading “Why would you let those guys get away with it?”
After all three lawyers said they had no further questions for Chaney, court stayed in session outside the jury’s presence – they got to go home a bit early – to discuss the matter of jury instructions and what would be in them. Judge DuBuque mentioned what sounded like a long, complicated first draft.
“The tree of instructions has various branches, your honor,” Roe noted.
“I was just trying to see which ones I could prune,” Judge DuBuque smiled.
Roe quipped, “I feel clipped already.”
Laughter followed. Shortly thereafter, so did the end of the day’s session, after Baird explained he had taken off his suit jacket because of the courtroom temperature – another day of misbehaving by its spotty-at-best air-conditioning system.
Today at 9, Roe is expected to call his next witness, which we believe to be Chaney’s then-girlfriend Jamerica. Huber’s lawyer Savage seemed to indicate he’s not calling any witnesses; Baird said he would have at least one “rebuttal witness.” Once everyone is out of witnesses, closing arguments will follow, and then the case goes to the jury. If you have lost track, by the way, the two men who pleaded guilty to murder for actually doing the shooting, Sylve and O’Neal, are not scheduled to be sentenced until after this trial.
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