Montgomery County Circuit Court jury finds man guilty of killing

Daily Record, The (Baltimore), Aug 5, 2008 by Steve Lash

A Montgomery County Circuit Court jury found Anthony Q. Kelly -- who represented himself at trial -- guilty of first-degree murder in the shooting deaths of a 9-year-old girl and her father in their Silver Spring home six years ago this month.

Presiding Judge Durke G. Thompson said he plans to set a sentencing date within the next week. Kelly faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Kelly, 44, sat emotionless as the guilty verdicts for murder and related robbery, burglary and handgun offenses were read by the jury foreman on Monday afternoon.

The verdict, reached after about three hours of deliberations, culminated a day of high drama at the Rockville courthouse, as Montgomery County State's Attorney John J. McCarthy and Kelly delivered their closing arguments in the morning.

Calling the evidence "overwhelming and uncontradicted," McCarthy urged the jury to convict Kelly of first-degree murder in the shooting deaths of Erika Smith and her father, Gregory Russell, 47, during an Aug. 6, 2002, robbery.

In his closing rebuttal before the case went to the jury, Kelly said police planted the evidence and asked the jurors, "Why would anybody want to break into a house and kill a child and her father?"

Kelly stood accused of beating and shooting Erika, then turning the gun on Russell.

He has also been charged in Washington, D.C., with having killed Seattle lawyer Katie Lynn Hill, 36, near the Takoma Park Metro station, on Aug. 9, 2002.

Fired his lawyer

Until December, Kelly had been deemed incompetent to stand trial for the murders of Smith and Russell. He fired his attorney a few weeks before the July 28 start of the trial and was allowed to represent himself.

McCarthy, in his closing arguments in the six-day trial, told the jurors that Kelly voluntarily opted to be his own lawyer.

"The defendant has chosen to represent himself, which is his legal right," McCarthy said. "He is not entitled to be found not guilty."

During his one-hour summation, McCarthy walked the jury through the state's evidence, which included the handgun Kelly allegedly used in the killings and a black wig and costume beard he allegedly wore as a disguise.

McCarthy often referred to the young victim, whom he called "a gorgeous child [who] liked to play with dolls" and was due to the see the dentist the next day.

"This is a hard case to listen to because of the evil that [Kelly] has done, the brutality of his crimes and the age of one of his victims," McCarthy said at the outset of his argument. "If he'd have let her live one more day, she would've gotten braces."

McCarthy added that Erika had been watching television shortly before the attack.

"We actually know what station it was on," he said. "It was on Nickelodeon."

McCarthy characterized Erika's father as a hero, who rushed in vain toward his daughter, whose terrified cries he had heard.

"He was coming to save her," McCarthy said of Russell; "his last act on Earth."

Turning to the evidence introduced at trial, McCarthy picked up the gun.

"I have it in my hand," he said, gesturing and raising his voice in emphasis. "You know this is what he beat that child with, what he killed that child with."

McCarthy also raised the wig and beard, reminding the jurors that Russell had been on the phone during the attack and told his friend on the other end of the line that the attacker had scraggly hair and a beard.

Investigators testified that Kelly's DNA was found inside the wig and on the chin part of the fake beard. Investigators also testified that they had found fibers from the wig and beard on a window sill that McCarthy described as the killer's escape route.

McCarthy also used a power-point system to illustrate the state's chronology of the crime, an overhead projector to show crime-scene evidence of what McCarthy called the bloodstained print of Russell's hand on a wall of the house, and poster boards describing the elements of first-degree murder.

'Time to hear the truth'

Kelly's 20-minute closing argument, by contrast, was low-tech: he recited his remarks from sheets of yellow legal pad. His monotone, too, contrasted with McCarthy's more dramatic oratory.

"It's time to hear the truth, now, nothing but the truth," Kelly began. "The police planted evidence."

Kelly said the police have no witnesses to the killings, nor did they find any blood or gunpowder residue linking him to the deaths. He also said the gun allegedly used in the killings was not his.

"[The police] couldn't put the gun in my hand," Kelly told the jurors. "There are millions if not billions of black guns in the world."

Kelly said the police could not have found wig or beard fibers because neither of the objects shed. He added that investigators could not be certain that the fibers they found were from the wig entered into evidence because "millions if not billions of the same wig" are sold around the world.

"The police tried to set me up," Kelly said.

"Anthony Kelly is not a cold, heartless child killer," he told the jury. "Anthony Kelly has no responsibility for these murders."