Hmm...BAC of .325 on the dead man, no defensive wounds or signs of a struggle. I don't think the self defense claim is going to fly with the jury.
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/ne...E499B198B11941DA86257101002083F7?OpenDocument
Jeff
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/ne...E499B198B11941DA86257101002083F7?OpenDocument
Man testifies he stabbed visitor with an antique bayonet 16 times in self-defense
By William Lamb
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
01/24/2006
BELLEVILLE
Taking the stand in his own defense, a Belleville man testified Tuesday that he was defending himself when he stabbed an Alorton man 16 times with an antique bayonet in his downtown apartment on June 10, 2004.
Michael E. Heller, 36, has been charged with first-degree murder. He testified in circuit court in Belleville Tuesday that Maurice A. Hickman, 31, followed him from the Belleville MetroLink station to his apartment above the Ace hardware store at North Illinois and D streets about 4:30 a.m. that day.
According to Heller's testimony, Hickman asked for money to buy alcohol, and Heller protested that he was broke. Hickman persisted, eventually talking his way into Heller's apartment. Heller said that he stabbed Hickman with the bayonet - a souvenir from a high school trip to Austria - after Hickman became violent, choking Heller and putting him in a headlock.
"I was hoping he'd just look at (the bayonet) and get scared and leave," Heller testified. Instead, Heller said, Hickman tried to grab the weapon.
"You try to take a gun away from a cop, he has to use it," Heller said. "Well, I had to use it."
Prosecutors countered that the 16 stab wounds on Hickman's body - 13 of which were in his back - suggested that Heller had been motivated by something other than self-defense. In his opening statement, Assistant State's Attorney James G. Piper Jr. said that Heller had allowed Hickman into his apartment and had passed up several opportunities to call the police, including the minute or so that Hickman was using the apartment's bathroom. Heller called police after stabbing Hickman.
Piper also said that an autopsy found Hickman's blood-alcohol level to be .325 percent at the time of his death - four times the legal limit to drive in Illinois or Missouri - suggesting that Hickman was too impaired to pose much of a threat. The autopsy found no "defensive wounds," such as scrapes, cuts or bruises, on Hickman's body to indicate that a struggle had taken place, Piper said.
Heller's public defender, Alexander P. Libell, responded that Heller was defending himself from a threatening "250-pound stranger." Libell added that Hickman's criminal record included two convictions for domestic battery.
"Michael Heller is not the cold-blooded killer that these overzealous prosecutors have made him out to be," Libell said.
Closing arguments are scheduled for this morning, after which Chief Circuit Judge Jan V. Fiss will turn the case over to the jury.
Heller described himself as a writer and artist with ambitions to move to Toronto to become a screenwriter.
Jeff