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Samuel verdict: Guilty

DAVID COLE/Staff writer | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 8 years, 11 months AGO
by DAVID COLE/Staff writer
| January 30, 2016 8:00 PM

COEUR d'ALENE — A jury Friday night found Eldon Samuel III guilty of two counts of murder.

First District Court Judge Benjamin Simpson said all sentencing options will be open. Sentencing will be at least 10 weeks out, he said.

"I am heartbroken that yet again Eldon has been let down by adults that should have protected him," Chief Public Defender John Adams said after the verdict.

Passionate closing arguments lasted through the morning Friday and jurors began deliberating at lunch time. The jurors reached a verdict at 7 p.m.

Kootenai County Deputy Prosecutor Art Verharen focused his closing argument on the "prolonged" and "purposeful" attack of 13-year-old brother Jonathan Samuel, who had autism.

He said the brother was a helpless victim, and Samuel wielded multiple weapons on him in a gruesome attack that required effort just to reach the brother who was hiding under his bed. Samuel had to move the box spring and mattress to get at the boy, who was 11 months younger.

Adams, in his closing, told the jury his client sometimes hated his brother and father, and sometimes loved them. Adams argued that a lot of people feel both emotions for family members at times.

"You have to decide what his state of mind was" at the time of the killings, Adams argued. "They lived a life in total isolation and desperation" ... moving from "one dark, smelly, dirty house to the next" over the course of Samuel and his brother's short lives.

After first shooting his father, 46-year-old Eldon Samuel Jr., his client's "brain snapped."

He turned on his brother, who was likely screaming in panic after their father's shooting.

"You can only take so much," Adams said. "His entire universe had exploded."

Samuel, who was 14 at the time of the incident and is now 16, was charged with first-degree murder for killing his brother.

"It takes determination to do what he did to his brother," Verharen said.

He argued the attack was done out of jealousy for the attention and preferential treatment the brother received. He said Samuel hated his brother and mutilated his dead body, stabbing shotgun wounds and inflicting other injuries both before and after he died.

Samuel was his brother's primary caretaker outside school because his parents couldn't do it, as the mother lived in California and the father was constantly on drugs.

Verharen said the jurors didn't need a controversial police interrogation of Samuel to find him guilty of murder. That interrogation was done without an attorney present, right after he was arrested. Samuel admitted to the killings in that extensive interrogation.

"All you have to do in this case is look at the physical evidence," Verharen said.

Jonathan Samuel was shot 9 or 10 times, and stabbed or chopped at with a knife and machete 100 times.

Their father was a violent man, and he had hit Samuel in the arms or chest just prior to the shootings. Verharen questioned if shooting his father was a justified self-defense for Samuel, and if there was adequate provocation at the time.

"Your job is to determine if what he did to his dad is reasonable," Verharen said.

The jury decided it wasn't reasonable, and found him guilty of second-degree murder.

Samuel shot his father in the belly while in Samuel's bedroom. His father crawled through the living room to Jonathan Samuel's room, dying as he leaned against a nightstand. Samuel shot him three more times in the cheek and head.

Those final three shots, Verharen argued, negated any claim of self-defense. And, he said, sons aren't justified shooting their fathers for pushing or hitting them a couple times. Samuel had claimed his father had abused him previous to the March 24, 2014, killings.

"Zombies, that's the last thing I want to talk about," Verharen said, calling any defense based on paranoia the Samuel family had about an imminent zombie apocalypse "ridiculous."

"When you think (the zombie defense) through, it falls apart," Verharen said.

"He was entitled to protect himself" from his violent father, Adams argued. According to testimony during the trial, Eldon Samuel Jr. had stocked the home with weapons and had plans to run to the mountains in the event of a zombie apocalypse.

"Don't make any more tragedy for this kid" and the family, Adams told the jury.

Verharen said having horrible parents, who were both abusive drug addicts, was not an excuse for these killings. He assured the jury Simpson would hand down a fair sentence.

"You have to trust the judge is going to do the right thing with Eldon," Verharen said.

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ARTICLES BY DAVID COLE/STAFF WRITER

January 26, 2016 8 p.m.

Eldon Samuel's sister calls father 'violent'

Defense continues to work to show father’s killing was self-defense

COEUR d'ALENE — Eldon Samuel III's defense team continued Monday calling witnesses to describe the boy's parents' prescription-drug abuse and his brother's "aggressive" behavior related to autism.

January 14, 2016 8 p.m.

Jurors see video, pictures of crime scene in Samuel murder trial

Younger brother shot 10 times; father shot four times

COEUR d'ALENE — Teenager Eldon G. Samuel III unloaded on his younger brother, Jonathan Samuel, shooting him 10 times using a shotgun and handgun. He also inflicted roughly 100 other wounds using a knife and machete on March 24, 2014, according to opening statements and testimony Wednesday in Samuel's double-murder trial.

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