William Riley Gaul fired fatal shots and then slept, testimony showed
After sneaking into the back yard of his estranged girlfriend’s house and firing two shots into two walls in her bedroom — both aimed at where she was sleeping — former Maryville College football player William Riley Gaul returned to his dorm and went to sleep, testimony Friday showed.
“He said he’d been out,” testified Walker Stanley, Gaul’s roommate and football teammate.
Gaul, 19, is standing trial in Knox County Criminal Court on charges including first-degree murder and especially aggravated stalking in the November 2016 shooting death of 16-year-old Emma Walker, an honor student and cheerleader at Central High School.
Walker was asleep on her bed inside her North Knox County home when a bullet from a gun Gaul stole from his grandfather’s vehicle traveled through her bedroom wall and struck her in the side of her head, just behind her ear. Crime scene evidence shown to jurors Friday suggested Walker died instantly.
Gaul doesn’t deny — now — that he fired that shot into a wall parallel to the side of Walker’s bed and a second one into another wall parallel to the headboard of the bed. The second bullet apparently struck a wooden stud in the wall, altering the bullet’s path, Knox County Sheriff’s Office Capt. Brad Park testified Friday.
Back in November 2016, however, Gaul denied knowing anything about the shooting, and testimony earlier this week showed he lied to KCSO Lt. Allen Merritt and told his friends to lie, too.
Stanley testified Friday he didn’t know Gaul very well when the pair were assigned a dorm to share at Maryville College in the fall of 2016, but he noticed Gaul seemed troubled.
“I could tell he just wasn’t in a good place in his life,” Stanley said. “He was losing weight.”
In the hours before the fatal shooting, Stanley said Gaul asked him if he knew how to remove fingerprints from a gun. After Walker was discovered dead, Stanley said Gaul told him “not to talk to police” about that.
Testimony Thursday showed Gaul asked friend Noah Walton the same question but insisted he was asking on behalf of Stanley.
Prosecutors Kevin Allen and Molly Martin are hoping to use those lies — and many others Gaul told in the days before and after Walker’s death — to convince jurors
Gaul coolly fired two shots precisely where he knew Walker’s body and head would be positioned on the bed to kill her after she ended their tumultuous two-year relationship.
Defense attorney Wesley Stone contends Gaul was a troubled teenager who only meant to scare Walker with the gunshots so he could then appear as her rescuer and didn’t know those bullets would travel through the wall.
A neighbor reported hearing two shots around 2:30 a.m. Stanley testified Friday Gaul showed up at the dorm at 4:45 a.m. and went to sleep. Stanley woke him up a few hours later because Gaul had a class that morning.
Stanley said Gaul went to the bathroom and, when he returned, he told Stanley that his mother had just called.
“He told me that they had found Emma hurt,” Stanley said.
KCSO Investigator David Wise told jurors earlier this week Gaul acted as if he didn’t know anything had happened to Walker when Wise visited the Gaul home later that same morning. Wise had been summoned there by Gaul’s grandfather, who said he was worried about Gaul’s reaction to news of Walker’s death — and his missing gun.
“I was under the assumption he knew she had passed,” Wise said. “When I said ‘Sorry about Emma,’ he said, ‘What do you mean?’ I said, ‘She’s gone.’ He said, ‘Where did she go?’”
Wise said Gaul denied knowing anything about his grandfather’s missing gun. Testimony has shown Gaul later recruited friends to help him ditch the gun in the Tennessee River, but his friends had already gone to authorities.
They secretly recorded Gaul at the behest of KCSO investigators, and Gaul was arrested just as he prepared to toss a trash bag of evidence, including the gun, into the Tennessee River.
The shooting came after a series of ploys by Gaul to get Walker’s attention, including a bogus kidnapping claim. The couple began dating when Walker was a freshman at Central and Gaul was a junior.
Friends of both Walker and Gaul said the pair fought often, with Gaul repeatedly described as “possessive and controlling.” Walker’s parents tried to limit their time together, but Gaul often sneaked into the Walker home through Walker’s bedroom window. Walker’s parents ultimately grounded her two weeks before the slaying, and Walker told friends she had finally decided to end things with Gaul permanently.
The trial continues Monday.