Molly Conley murder case goes to jury

EVERETT — A birthday slumber party brought Molly Conley to Lake Stevens.

She had just turned 15. There was a cake, silliness and plans to watch a “Harry Potter” movie. She and her friends decided to make a late night trek to the lake. Molly never made it back.

Her dad on Thursday clutched a copy of “To Kill a Mockingbird” as he listened to lawyers give closing statements. The Harper Lee novel was one of his daughter’s favorites. Molly’s mom later made her way to the front of the packed courtroom to hug Snohomish County deputy prosecutor Ed Stemler and thank him.

Superior Court Judge Thomas Wynne instructed the jury to return to the courthouse on Friday to begin deliberations in the murder trial of the man accused of shooting Molly as she walked along a dark road in Lake Stevens on June 1, 2013.

Prosecutors say that hours after Erick Walker clocked off at Boeing he went on a random shooting spree. They say he crossed paths with Molly as she and her friends walked back from the lake.

Walker is charged with first-degree murder. Prosecutors allege that he showed “extreme indifference to human life” by firing his two Ruger Blackhawk pistols as he drove around Snohomish County. He also is charged with multiple counts of first-degree assault and drive-by shooting. Several houses and vehicles were struck by bullets and prosecutors allege that Walker, 28, specifically shot at homes that appeared occupied.

“For three hours a destructive force indiscriminately blew through Lake Stevens and Marysville,” Stemler said.

There was no reason to target Molly and no reason to fire at the houses and cars that were hit, he said.

“Somebody just wanted to hurt someone that night. It was the defendant. He wanted to hurt people, kill people,” Stemler said.

During the three-week trial, 76 witnesses testified and jurors saw more than 400 exhibits. All of it is enough to prove that Walker is responsible for the destruction, the deputy prosecutor said.

Jurors heard from a firearms expert who concluded that the bullets recovered from houses and cars matched two guns Walker owned. The broken headlight pieces found outside the Marysville shooting scene fit the damaged headlight Walker’s father turned over to detectives, Stemler said.

Walker’s Pontiac G6 is consistent with the vehicle captured on a home surveillance camera a few blocks from where Molly was shot. He told detectives he had been driving around Lake Stevens that night.

Stemler reminded jurors that Snohomish County sheriff’s detective Brad Pince questioned Walker about whether anyone else had driven his car or had access to his guns.

He would have been the only one, Walker admitted.

Everett defense attorney Mark Mestel later urged jurors to be critical of the investigation and the prosecution’s case.

The evidence doesn’t add up as much as they think it does, he said. There are too many holes and detectives made too many leaps to prove that Walker was behind the gunfire, Mestel said. The cops were under pressure to solve a high-profile murder and once they honed in on his client, their investigation didn’t go any further. They ignored any other possibilities and prosecutors didn’t give jurors a complete picture of what happened, Mestel said.

“The state’s case is riddled with reasonable doubt,” he said.

There is nothing that directly ties his client to Molly’s death. Detectives searched for hundreds of hours for the bullet that killed her because they knew it would be crucial in proving who fired the fatal shot. It was never found.

“If they can’t show us that, they really have no case,” Mestel said.

They ignored a witness who reported hearing gunfire in her Lake Stevens neighborhood and saw a blue SUV speed away, Mestel said. They downplayed the witness who said he saw a light-colored car hit the vehicle at the Marysville shooting scene. They didn’t prove that it was even possible to hit a second-story window from a car outside the house, as they claim Walker managed.

If the facts didn’t fit their case, they left them out, Mestel said.

The defense attorney asked jurors to question the testimony from Brian Smelser, the firearms expert from the State Patrol crime lab. He didn’t produce pictures that showed how the bullets recovered at the crime scenes matched the test bullets fired from Walker’s gun.

He couldn’t quantify or qualify how he judges whether a bullet is a match for a gun, Mestel said.

“If you have reasonable doubt about the ballistics, then the state’s case fails,” he said.

Evidence and common sense shows Walker was the man responsible for the “hurricane of bullets,” deputy prosecutor Edirin Okoloko told jurors before they headed off behind closed doors.

He urged the jury to look hard at the claim that police rushed to judgement. Who came up with the plan to set up Walker and when? What do you make of time-stamped police photographs of that evidence being gathered from the street long before the defendant became a suspect? And if police were going to plant evidence, why not produce a bullet fired from one of Walker’s weapons and claim it was the one that ended Molly’s life?

He encouraged jurors to heed what the judge had said about the importance of circumstantial evidence and the jury’s ability to reach inferences based on common sense and experience.

At each of the scenes in Lake Stevens and Marysville, detectives were able to demonstrate that somebody had fired a single shot and left the area, apparently without dropping any shell casings. In the days after the gunfire, Walker showed an intense interest in the case, talking with others about what may have happened and searching for news on his phone.

Science ultimately linked eight bullets recovered after the shootings to two revolvers owned by Walker.

Molly died that night, the prosecutor said, but the risk was there for everyone who encountered Walker as he created “a path of destruction, indiscriminate in its victims.”

Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463, hefley@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @dianahefley.

Talk to us

> Give us your news tips.

> Send us a letter to the editor.

> More Herald contact information.

More in Local News

A firefighter stands in silence before a panel bearing the names of L. John Regelbrugge and Kris Regelbrugge during the ten-year remembrance of the Oso landslide on Friday, March 22, 2024, at the Oso Landslide Memorial in Oso, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
‘Flood of emotions’ as Oso Landslide Memorial opens on 10th anniversary

Friends, family and first responders held a moment of silence at 10:37 a.m. at the new 2-acre memorial off Highway 530.

Julie Petersen poses for a photo with images of her sister Christina Jefferds and Jefferds’ grand daughter Sanoah Violet Huestis next to a memorial for Sanoah at her home on March 20, 2024 in Arlington, Washington. Peterson wears her sister’s favorite color and one of her bangles. (Annie Barker / The Herald)
‘It just all came down’: An oral history of the Oso mudslide

Ten years later, The Daily Herald spoke with dozens of people — first responders, family, survivors — touched by the deadliest slide in U.S. history.

Victims of the Oso mudslide on March 22, 2014. (Courtesy photos)
Remembering the 43 lives lost in the Oso mudslide

The slide wiped out a neighborhood along Highway 530 in 2014. “Even though you feel like you’re alone in your grief, you’re really not.”

Director Lucia Schmit, right, and Deputy Director Dara Salmon inside the Snohomish County Department of Emergency Management on Friday, March 8, 2024, in Everett, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
How Oso slide changed local emergency response ‘on virtually every level’

“In a decade, we have just really, really advanced,” through hard-earned lessons applied to the pandemic, floods and opioids.

Ron and Gail Thompson at their home on Monday, March 4, 2024 in Oso, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
In shadow of scarred Oso hillside, mudslide’s wounds still feel fresh

Locals reflected on living with grief and finding meaning in the wake of a catastrophe “nothing like you can ever imagine” in 2014.

Rep. Suzan DelBene, left, introduces Xichitl Torres Small, center, Undersecretary for Rural Development with the U.S. Department of Agriculture during a talk at Thomas Family Farms on Monday, April 3, 2023, in Snohomish, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Under new federal program, Washingtonians can file taxes for free

At a press conference Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Suzan DelBene called the Direct File program safe, easy and secure.

Former Snohomish County sheriff’s deputy Jeremie Zeller appears in court for sentencing on multiple counts of misdemeanor theft Wednesday, March 27, 2024, at Snohomish County Superior Court in Everett, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
Ex-sheriff’s deputy sentenced to 1 week of jail time for hardware theft

Jeremie Zeller, 47, stole merchandise from Home Depot in south Everett, where he worked overtime as a security guard.

Everett
11 months later, Lake Stevens man charged in fatal Casino Road shooting

Malik Fulson is accused of shooting Joseph Haderlie to death in the parking lot at the Crystal Springs Apartments last April.

T.J. Peters testifies during the murder trial of Alan Dean at the Snohomish County Courthouse on Tuesday, March 26, 2024 in Everett, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Bothell cold case trial now in jury’s hands

In court this week, the ex-boyfriend of Melissa Lee denied any role in her death. The defendant, Alan Dean, didn’t testify.

A speed camera facing west along 220th Street Southwest on Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2023 in Edmonds, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
New Washington law will allow traffic cams on more city, county roads

The move, led by a Snohomish County Democrat, comes as roadway deaths in the state have hit historic highs.

Mrs. Hildenbrand runs through a spelling exercise with her first grade class on the classroom’s Boxlight interactive display board funded by a pervious tech levy on Tuesday, March 19, 2024 in Marysville, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Lakewood School District’s new levy pitch: This time, it won’t raise taxes

After two levies failed, the district went back to the drawing board, with one levy that would increase taxes and another that would not.

Alex Hanson looks over sections of the Herald and sets the ink on Wednesday, March 30, 2022 in Everett, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Black Press, publisher of Everett’s Daily Herald, is sold

The new owners include two Canadian private investment firms and a media company based in the southern United States.

Support local journalism

If you value local news, make a gift now to support the trusted journalism you get in The Daily Herald. Donations processed in this system are not tax deductible.