Wednesday, March 12, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
A District Court jury didn't buy the defense contention that the four bullets Tyrone Howard fired into his 70-year-old mother weren't intended to kill her.
The jury in District Judge Myron Leavitt's courtroom deliberated just three hours Tuesday before convicting Howard, 43, of first-degree murder.
He showed no emotion when the verdict was read.
The murder occurred after Howard had sneaked back into his mother's house despite having been evicted and served by police with a temporary protective order only minutes before on March 18, 1996.
Defense attorneys didn't contest that the revolver was in Howard's hand when 70-year-old Catherlena Howard was shot four times at the house at 6709 Larchwood Lane, near Spring Mountain Road and Rainbow Boulevard.
Deputy Public Defender Curtis Brown said during closing arguments that Howard had "no desire or plan to kill," noting that the incident occurred in broad daylight and in front of several people.
But Deputy District Attorney David Schwartz countered that Tyrone Howard was motivated by anger over his ouster from the home where he had been living.
"Death is what he wanted and death is what he got," Schwartz said, telling the jury that the defendant showed no remorse for his actions and shed no tears for his mother.
The same jury that convicted Howard now will have to determine whether the appropriate punishment should be a life prison term with or without the possibility of parole after 20 years. Whatever penalty is selected will be doubled because a deadly weapon was used to commit the crime.
The penalty hearing is set to begin March 17.
Testimony at the trial showed that Catherlena Howard was walking down the hallway in the home when her son grabbed her and fired a bullet into her face.
The wound didn't incapacitate her and she ran out of the house screaming, only to be shot in the back as she fled. Howard then stood over her and fired a bullet into her brain.
Schwartz portrayed Howard as a son who took advantage of his mother and then took her life.
"When God granted man choice, He took the chance that some would choose evil," the prosecutor said. "Howard chose evil instead of good and death instead of life."
Defense attorneys had tried to portray Catherlena Howard as a manipulative mother who would pretend to help her son in an effort to snatch the $700,000 inheritance he received from her ex-husband.
The defense attorneys argued that Howard didn't go to the house to kill anyone, but only to retrieve the .38 caliber pistol his father had left him. It was when his mother came at him with a glass frying pan after he had obtained the gun that she was shot.
Schwartz said the woman had been trying for a year to get her son to move from her home and finally had to resort to evicting him, although she told a friend that her son had threatened to shoot her and burn down the house if eviction proceedings were initiated.
After Metro Police officers had evicted Tyrone Howard, he was spotted sneaking back to the home. His mother called 911, but she entered the home before police arrived.
A locksmith who had changed the home's locks was following the victim when she was yanked into a room.
The locksmith testified that he heard her say in a muffled voice, "He's back, he's back" and a moment later a shot rang out.
A backyard neighbor testified that he saw the injured woman run from the house but get shot down by Howard before she could get away.
Metro Police SWAT officers found Howard hiding in a neighbor's storage shed two hours later.
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