Son on trial for shotgun slaying of his mother
Opening statements began Monday in the trial of a man charged with killing his mother and her boyfriend.
NORRISTOWN >> A 20-yearold Ambler man had a “specific intent to kill” when he fatally shot his mother and her boyfriend as they lay defenseless in bed, a prosecutor argued to a jury.
“He walked into their bedroom while they were sleeping and fired six shots into their faces… so they would never see the light of day again,” Montgomery County Assistant District Attorney Kelly Lloyd argued Monday during her opening statement to jurors as the trial for accused double-killer Joshua Trunk got under way. “The defendant is the only one who had the motive to carry out these brutal murders.”
Trunk is charged with two counts each of firstand third-degree murder and a charge of possessing an instrument of crime in connection with the alleged 10 p.m. July 31, 2016, shooting deaths of his mother, 54-year-old Janice Trunk, and her boyfriend, 44-yearold Kevin Smith, in their residence at the Forest Garden Apartments.
Lloyd implied Trunk’s motive was that he was angry at his mother for placing him in a drug rehabilitation facility from which he was released on July 25 after a one-week stay. Lloyd maintained evidence will show Trunk threatened his mother and had a “specific intent to kill,” which is a requirement for a first-degree murder conviction. Lloyd, who is being assisted by First Assistant District Attorney Edward F. McCann Jr., described Trunk’s conduct as “willful and deliberate.”
But defense lawyer Benjamin Cooper argued there is no DNA evidence linking Trunk to the murders and that a murder weapon was never found.
“Guesswork, that’s what this case is, guesswork,” Cooper argued during his opening statement to the jury of seven women and five men. “They don’t know who did this and they still don’t know who did this. The question in this case is who did it and the answer, I suggest, is we don’t know.”
Cooper suggested prosecution witnesses who testified that Trunk made threats against his mother in the days leading up to the slayings gave inconsistent statements and that their testimony is unreliable.
The trial before Judge Gary S. Silow is expected to last several days.
Several prosecution witnesses testified they heard a series of gunshots sometime after 10 p.m.
“I was freaking out, I didn’t know what to do,” a woman who resided in the apartment complex testified, adding she called 911 about an hour later to alert police about what she had heard.
Ambler Police Officer Ryan Rhodes testified he got no response to his repeated knocking at the door of the victims’ residence when he arrived at the complex after 11:15 p.m. and entered the apartment upon finding the door unlocked. Rhodes testified he found the victims dead in their bed and observed no signs of forced entry into the apartment.
County Detective Albert Dinnell testified there were no signs of ransacking inside the apartment and he collected six 9mm fired shell casings, five on the bedroom floor and one on the bed shared by the victims.
Relatives of Smith became emotional at times during the testimony and were comforted by a county Victim Services representative. Several of them tearfully left the courtroom when crime scene photos of the victims’ bodies were displayed for the jury on a large projection screen, the images too much for them to bear.
Trunk appeared to show no emotion as the image of his dead mother appeared on the projection screen and as detectives described the nature of her death. Trunk stated that his mother “had to die” and he voiced the option that he would “hire someone to do it,” according to the criminal complaint filed by county Detective William R. Mitchell Jr. and Ambler Detective Chad Cassel.
One friend of Trunk testified Monday that around the time of the murders Trunk told him “I did something wrong” and “I had to do it.”
Several witnesses told detectives that Janice Trunk had expressed concern about the behavior of her son, allegedly telling one friend that “if something ever happens to (her) it would be Josh,” according to the arrest affidavit.
Detectives learned that Trunk had been released from Eagleville Hospital on July 25, after a one-week stay, and returned to living with his mother and Smith at the apartment complex located in the 100 block of Forest Avenue. Witnesses told detectives that Trunk had a drug problem that made him paranoid, according to court papers.
While no weapon was recovered during the investigation, witnesses told detectives that Trunk did possess handguns, including a 9mm weapon, in the past, according to the arrest affidavit.
A conviction of first-degree murder carries an automatic life prison term. A conviction of third-degree murder carries a possible maximum sentence of 20 to 40 years in prison.
“Guesswork, that’s what this case is, guesswork. They don’t know who did this and they still don’t know who did this. The question in this case is who did it and the answer, I suggest, is we don’t know.” — defense lawyer Benjamin Cooper