Jenson Hugh Hankins repeatedly told his now 17-year-old girlfriend that he planned to kill football teammate and classmate John Jasmer, the girl testified Monday.
She told a Snohomish County Superior Court jury that Jasmer had sexually assaulted her and that was one of the reasons why Hankins wanted revenge.
She testified that she tried to talk Hankins out of violence “because I didn’t want him to go to jail.” Hankins told her: “It needs to be done,” she told the court.
The testimony came in the second day of a two-week trial for Hankins, now 17, who faces adult first-degree murder charges in the Aug. 21, 2003, beating and stabbing death of Jasmer, 16. Both are former students at Seattle’s Roosevelt High School.
Deputy prosecutor Michael Held asked why she didn’t tell adults or go to police.
Her concern, she said, was she wouldn’t be thought of as “a loyal girlfriend,” and Hankins would get in trouble for plotting a death.
Besides, she added, there was a chance the killing wouldn’t happen.
Later, after the girl returned from a trip to Oregon, Hankins confided “that he had killed John,” she testified.
What did he say, Held asked?
“It’s done,” or something like that, she testified. What did that mean? “It meant that he killed John,” said the girl, who is not named as The Herald normally doesn’t identify sex crime victims.
Later, co-defendant Joshua Goldman, now 19, is scheduled to testify for the prosecution.
Prosecutors allege that Goldman and Hankins lured Jasmer to an isolated spot on the Tulalip Indian Reservation where they stabbed and beat him to death. Then, prosecutors allege, the two put Jasmer’s body in a grave dug the previous day.
Goldman has pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and stands to spend 22 years in prison. Hankins faces a similar prison term if convicted of first-degree murder.
Hankins’ lawyers are trying to show the jury that he didn’t intend to kill Jasmer, but was caught up in a fantasy of tough-guy posturing and emotion over his girlfriend’s sexual assault allegations.
Defense lawyer Rachel Levy last week told jurors she wants them to consider lesser forms of homicide that would result in less time in prison for Hankins.
Reporter Jim Haley: 425-339-3447 or haley@heraldnet.com.
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