Brier shooting suspect calm on police tape

Published 10:56 pm Monday, December 3, 2007

EVERETT — Noel Evan Caldellis appeared almost at ease in a police video, even though he was under arrest and wore handcuffs while seated in a Lynnwood Police Department interview room.

He occasionally sipped from a plastic bottle of water while answering tough questions about why he fired shots first into the air and then into a crowd gathered outside a house in Brier over Labor Day weekend in 2006.

The video was shown to a jury in Snohomish County Superior Court on Monday. It was one of the last pieces of evidence deputy prosecutor Matt Hunter planned to introduce in Caldellis’ lengthy first-degree murder trial.

Caldellis, 20, is accused of killing Tacoma college student Jay Clements, 21, who grew up in Mukilteo.

The trial began Nov. 7. Jurors have heard from 50 witnesses, and saw more than 200 pieces of evidence.

Seattle defense attorney Raymond McFarland said he will call a few more witnesses before the jury is bused to view the site of a party where Caldellis fired a .357-caliber revolver and Clements was shot in the chest and groin.

McFarland said it has not been decided whether Caldellis will take the witness stand in his own defense.

On Monday, jurors leaned forward, intently watching the 35-minute video.

Caldellis at first asked detectives for advice on whether he should have a lawyer present before answering questions. Detectives told him that was up to him and they wanted to get his side of the story down.

The defendant described the purchase of the gun from a man named John. Caldellis said he suspected it was stolen because he only paid about $150 for it. He bought the gun “to look cool,” he said on the video.

He briefly described being with a group of young men who went to Brier to watch or participate in an early-morning fight. Caldellis said he retrieved the gun from the trunk of his car, and he demonstrated on the video how he put it in a pants pocket when he arrived in Brier.

He admitted firing two shots into the air, but the crowd didn’t disperse and some started toward his friends who were fighting, he said.

Then he admitted shooting into the crowd.

“Alcohol affects you in stupid ways,” said Caldellis, who demonstrated lowering the weapon to crowd level.

The video is a key piece of evidence in the trial, but McFarland has contended that it is not conclusive. Throughout the trial he has been critical of the police investigation, asserting that police should have followed up on more leads, and officers became satisfied too early in the probe that Caldellis killed Clements.

He also noted inconsistencies from witnesses.

Some heard only three or four shots. Others said there were many more. Some described the shooter as a tall black man. Caldellis is Caucasian, light-skinned and short.

In his opening statement, McFarland told jurors that the prosecutor won’t be able to prove Caldellis fired the fatal shots because there is no forensic evidence tying the shooting to the defendant’s revolver.

Snohomish County Superior Court Thomas Wynne on Monday dismissed one of four serious charges against Caldellis, a second-degree murder charge. The judge let stand a first-degree murder charge.

Caldellis is accused of “manifesting extreme indifference to human life” by firing at the crowd.

Reporter Jim Haley: 425-339-3447 or jhaley@heraldnet.com.