NLR man’s convictions in three killings.

The Arkansas Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the capital, first-degree and second-degree murder convictions of Terry Dean Birts, a North Little Rock man who in 2009 used a distinctive .50caliber pistol to kill two people whose bodies were found in a vehicle parked along Interstate 40, and another who was found dying on Interstate 440.

Birts, 29, whose sentence was enhanced for using a firearm and having four or more prior felony convictions, is serving life in prison without parole. His victims were Tammy Lawrence, 48, and Ahki Hughes, 24, who were found dead on May 9, 2009, inside Lawrence’s black Ford Expedition alongside I-40, and Barry Glenn Murphy, 49, who was found seven hours later, mortally wounded, alongside I-440. Murphy died two months later.

The unusual murder weapon used to kill all three people has never been recovered.

Birts’ sole issue on appeal was whether Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen abused his discretion in excluding fingerprint and trace DNA evidence of unknown persons that was found in the vehicle and at Lawerence’s home.

At the trial, Tiffany Grimes, who was Birts’ wife, testified that he admitted to her shortly after the murders that he had killed the three and explained how the crimes unfolded. Grimes said he told her that he, Lawrence and Hughes had been at Lawrence’s home, “snorting powder and drinking,” when they left in the Expedition. Birts was sitting in the back seat when he shot Hughes and then Lawrence, Grimes said.

Grimes said Birts told her that he called his cousin, Kevin O’Donald, to pick them up, and O’Donald brought Murphy with him. Murphy kept telling Birts that he wouldn’t tell anyone anything, and that he didn’t see anything, but Birts drove Murphy away, shot him in the shoulder and threw him out of the vehicle, Grimes told jurors.

O’Donald testified that after Birts called him to pick Birts up in a parking lot, O’Donald heard two shots and saw two flashes of light inside a black vehicle that had just pulled up. O’Donald testified that he saw Birts exit the black vehicle holding a handgun. O’Donald testified that he followed Birts while Birts drove the black vehicle to an area where he staged a collision.

State Crime Laboratory employees testified that they found Birts’ DNA on items at Lawrence’s home including a condom, a cigarette butt, a vodka bottle, a plate and two glasses.

They also found Birts’ right palm print on the driver’s side of the vehicle’s exterior but told the jury that none of his DNA was found inside the vehicle.

Birts complained that the judge didn’t allow him to introduce unknown fingerprints found on a bottle of hemp oil on Lawrence’s nightstand and unknown trace DNA evidence found inside the house, including on a coffee mug and in semen found in a condom in the bathroom trash can. Birts was excluded as the source of both.

Prosecutors argued that the unknown DNA and fingerprints weren’t relevant, and the judge agreed. He also said that the evidence “does nothing more than create a conjecture on the part of whoever is thinking as to another person’s guilt,” which would make it inadmissible.

The Supreme Court agreed, citing case law that a defendant may introduce evidence tending to show that someone other than the defendant committed the crime, but only if the evidence points directly to the guilt of the third party. Evidence that merely creates an inference or conjecture as to another person’s guilt is inadmissible, the high court said.

Through Clint Miller, deputy public defender, Birts had argued that circumstantial evidence of the presence of unknown third parties in the vehicle or in the home was relevant because it could have created reasonable doubt in jurors’ minds as to Birts’ guilt.

But the court agreed with the state, represented in the appeal by Assistant Attorney General Brad Newman, that Lawrence could have had any number of social guests at her home during the time she lived there, and could have had family and friends as passengers in her vehicle, neither of which directly connects any unknown third person with the murders.