Alleged triggerman may be tough to convict

When 19-year-old Donte Johnson stands trial Jan. 10 on charges he was the triggerman who executed four young men in a drug-driven robbery on Aug. 14, 1998, prosecutors won't have the luxury of a confession -- as was the case with his two co-defendants.

But a jury will get to hear Johnson's words and see his picture on a television screen, according to Deputy District Attorney Robert Daskas.

An interview with KVBC Channel 3 in the Clark County Detention Center following Johnson's arrest just days after the quadruple murder will be a key piece of prosecution evidence, Daskas said.

In that interview Johnson denies being at the home on Terra Linda Avenue when the murders occurred. In fact, he said he had never been there.

But Johnson's fingerprint was found on a cigarette pack left next to one of the victims' bodies and his saliva was found on a cigarette butt discarded at the murder scene, the prosecutor continued after a court hearing Thursday.

Testimony about DNA tests on the saliva is scheduled to be part of the prosecution case.

During the television interview Johnson said he was asleep at home when the slayings occurred and he has witnesses to prove it.

But his girlfriend at the time, Charla Severs, has given a videotaped deposition to authorities implicating Johnson in the slayings.

It was the discovery of the fingerprint that led Metro Police homicide detectives to Johnson and that led to the arrests of 20-year-old Terrell Cochise Young and 19-year-old Sikia Smith.

Both Young and Smith gave confessions and both were convicted of murder, kidnapping and robbery during separate trials. Both also were given life prison terms without the possibility of parole by the juries, although Daskas and Deputy District Attorney Gary Guymon had sought death sentences.

The prosecutors also are seeking death for Johnson if he is convicted of first-degree murder.

Other evidence for Johnson's trial includes a pair of pants recovered from his home stained with blood from one of the victims.

Despite the accumulation of evidence, Guymon has stated that it is going to be "an uphill fight" to gain a conviction of Johnson because of the lack of a confession or an eyewitness.

But Guymon said that if there is a conviction, it will be a "downhill slide" to a death penalty.

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