Murder trial focuses on weapon, interrogation
The weapon used by the defendant and his videotaped statement to an investigator both came into focus Wednesday as testimony continued in the murder trial of Billy Forte.
Forte, 71 of Chattanooga, has admitted to the fatal shooting of his son, Charles Forte, 42, also of Chattanooga, nearly four years ago. The case is being heard before Judge Barry Steelman in Hamilton County Criminal Court.
Billy Forte is facing a charge of first-degree premeditated murder, and jurors are deciding whether the killing was premeditated.
State attorney Lee Ortwein called expert witness Jason Kennedy to testify. Kennedy specialized in firearms and shell casings when he worked for the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. He analyzed the firearm Forte used to shoot his son as well as the shell casings from the weapon.
Forte claimed he used the .410 shotgun because the pellets within the shell casing were soft, and he often used it to kill rats. Forte also claimed to officers that the victim brandished a gun, and he had no choice but to defend himself.
“Can you determine the fatality of a shotgun casing?” defense attorney Ben McGowan asked Kennedy during the cross-examination. “No,” Kennedy replied. Chattanooga police Sgt. Taylor Walker was called by prosecutor Miriam Johnson. Walker has been with the department since 2007 and was a homicide investigator in 2018. Walker responded to the scene the evening of the incident and interrogated Forte that same night.
“I observed, as I walked in, immediately that Mr. Charles Forte was laying on the ground, and I observed that he had been shot,” Walker testified. “I also observed there was a shotgun by the door and a shell casing
right next to it.”
A video of Billy Forte’s interrogation was presented to the jurors. In it, Forte began talking to himself, as well as engaging in conversation with an officer who was in the interrogation room but not questioning him.
Later in the footage, Walker entered and read Forte his Miranda rights. Forte was heard agreeing to speak to Walker without an attorney and was seen signing a waiver of his constitutional rights that Walker read out loud to him.
“What happened tonight was a combination of a year and a half of [Charles] talking to me like I’m a punk,” Forte told the officers. “I’m not a punk!”
Billy Forte owned Eaves Formal Wear, which was in bankruptcy. The business sold suits, shoes and other high-end clothing items. According to his Facebook page, Charles Forte was the director of operations of the store, but apparently the two Fortes clashed over the younger man’s business acumen, or lack there of.
“He didn’t make the deposits,” Billy Forte said, adding he suggested to Charles that he take some business and accounting courses. “How you going to order $30,000 worth of suits, but you don’t have the money to pay the business?
“He pushed me too far, he pushed me too far,” Forte said in the video. “I feel liberated. I killed in Vietnam. I killed Viet Cong, and I never felt liberated, but I feel liberated now.”
Forte went on to say that his son was constantly verbally abusing him and was often condescending towards him.
“I shot him with that because that’s all I ever shot,” Forte said in the interrogation video about using the .410 shotgun he said he owned to deal with vermin.
Later in the video, Billy Forte talked about a previous conversation he had with Charles Forte about the business’s finances.
“Two or three months ago, I told him that, ‘You either going to answer to the IRS about where that money went and leave here in handcuffs,’” Forte told Walker, “‘or you’re going to leave here with a sheet on your head.’”
“That was two months ago?” Walker asked.
“Two or three months ago,” Forte responded.
Around 7:30 p.m. on April 2, 2018, Chattanooga police responded to a call of a person being shot at the Eaves Formal Wear warehouse on 910 Creekside Road, according to an affidavit. The affidavit further states Billy Forte admitted, after waiving his rights to an attorney, that he shot his son.