Thursday, March 20, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
The murder trial of admitted drug abuser Marty Horne over the shooting death of a methamphetamine dealer was pockmarked with stories of life in the drug subculture.
It also included the Perry Mason-ish courtroom identification of an alternate -- or perhaps just an additional -- suspect in the 1995 slaying of Tom Kadlic, whose decomposing body was found under some debris in the desert.
Whether Horne, 32, was one of the killers who executed Kadlic with a shotgun blast and a pistol shot to the head is in the hands of a jury, which continued deliberations today in District Judge Don Chairez's courtroom.
Deputy State Public Defender Peter LaPorta told the jury during closing arguments that there were no fingerprints or other physical evidence connecting Horne with the slaying.
He charged that the state's case was built on "smoke and mirrors."
But Deputy District Attorney Michael O'Callaghan recalled witnesses testifing that before the murder Horne had talked of taking Kadlic into the desert and robbing him.
He charged that Horne's close friendship with the victim and his "gift of the tongue" made him the only person capable of luring Kadlic to his death.
Testimony at the trial indicated that Kadlic was known to flash large quantities of money and drugs -- including baseball-sized rocks of methamphetamine.
O'Callaghan said Horne was broke just before Kadlic disappeared but had enough money to pay his rent just after.
Horne's girlfriend, according to one witness, was overheard chastising him as a "shiftless bum who had to kill his friend to get rent money."
In his testimony Tuesday, Horne denied that had occurred and swore he wasn't responsible for his friend's murder.
LaPorta argued to the jury that Kadlic "chose to live in a den of thieves and addicts" who could have killed him but that Horne wasn't one of them.
He suggested that a more likely suspect was the one identified in court.
That situation involved a truck that Kadlic had been loaned by Daryl Garrett about the time the victim disappeared in June 1995.
Garrett's sister, Faye Paul, testified that four days later she spotted the truck and gave chase because it hadn't been returned. Although she didn't catch it, she said she saw the driver and it wasn't Horne.
On the day Paul testified, another witness subpoenaed by LaPorta walked by her and was immediately recognized by her as the mysterious driver of her brother's truck.
LaPorta told the jury during closing arguments Wednesday that there was no connection between Horne and the driver, who reportedly is now under investigation by Metro Police homicide detectives.
The truck was found a couple of days after the siting at the Lake Mead visitors center. It had been set ablaze.
O'Callaghan downplayed the truck driver's importance, calling him a "side issue."
He said all the bits and pieces of evidence pointed to Horne as the one who committed "this classic desert murder."
O'Callaghan conceded that the witnesses -- most of whom admitted being part of the methamphetamine drug world -- were "not a lot of sympathetic people."
But while he described Kadlic as "a bottom feeder ... in a culture of lawlessness," the prosecutor said the only thing worse is a person who feeds off those people.
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