Thursday, Jan. 22, 2004 | 11:07 a.m.
A brother and sister on trial in a bizarre murder-for-hire plot will battle prosecutors and each other in their fight to prove their innocence.
Prosecutors say Susanne Carno hired John Brian Ray to kill her husband, 36-year-old Richard Carno, in order to collect on a $500,000 life insurance policy.
But during opening statements of the trial on Wednesday, Deputy Public Defender Will Ewing indicated that Ray had apparently turned on his sister.
"Susanne Carno cooked up this scheme to kill her husband," Ewing said. "When John wouldn't do it, she found someone who would."
In light of the co-defendant's position, one of Carno's attorneys, Deputy Special Public Defender Alzora Jackson, renewed her motion to try the siblings separately.
"There are two prosecutors in the room," she said, facetiously referring to Ray's second attorney, Deputy Public Defender Joseph Abood.
District Judge Joseph Bonaventure denied Jackson's motion, saying he saw no reason to sever the charges.
Richard Carno was found dead in his green Ford Escort on Jan. 31, 2002, near a trailer park in northeast Las Vegas. The couple was more than $40,000 in debt when Richard Carno was killed.
Police began looking for Richard Carno when Susanne Carno called and reported him missing. Shortly before her husband's death, Susanne Carno had told family members that she had dreams that he had died, Chief Deputy District Attorney Chris Owens said.
Ray, 37, told friends that he "had to do a job," for his sister, Owens said.
But jurors spent most of the afternoon listening to the lengthy testimony of a man named James Walsh, who described himself as a former friend of Ray's.
Lawyers for both defendants claim Walsh was actually Richard Carno's killer. "I would suggest to you he's a co-conspirator," Jackson said.
Walsh said there had been signs that Ray was planning a murder. On one occasion, the two were watching the movie "Casino" when Ray indicated that he was involved in a murder-for-hire scheme similar to one portrayed in the movie.
"He told me he was going to do a contract for $50,000," Walsh said. "His sister was going to pay him."
"He had to wait till the life insurance went through to get the money."
Walsh said Ray drove a green Ford Escort to his trailer at the Comstock Trailer Park on Las Vegas Boulevard North the day Richard Carno disappeared.
Inside the car was a man with a plastic bag on his head with slits cut out at the eyes and duct tape wrapped around his neck, Walsh said. A blanket covered the windshield.
"He said it was his brother-in-law," Walsh said.
"I didn't think he would actually go through with something like that."
Walsh said Ray had with him a rifle with a silencer on it, a duffel bag and a backpack. Walsh said he didn't call police because Ray threatened to harm his family.
"He said, 'A little explosives could blow up your whole trailer.' "
Walsh and two friends called police the next morning when they stumbled upon the same car parked near a used car lot. A man was slumped over in the passenger's seat, Walsh said.
Under cross-examination, Abood grilled Walsh for more than two hours. Walsh's fingerprint was the only one found on the plastic bag around Ray Carno's neck. Walsh also initially did not tell police about Ray's involvement in the crime.
Walsh, an ex-felon convicted on gun charges, admitted he had smoked methamphetamine with Ray the morning Carno disappeared, but he maintained his innocence in the killing. His testimony came after prosecutors had arrested him and issued a material witness warrant. He was out of custody on Wednesday.
Prosecutors appeared to make headway in their quest to incriminate Susanne Carno. Jurors heard excerpts from a series of e-mails prosecutors say she sent to her brother in the weeks leading up to the killing.
"Get it done right away. I'm tired of waiting," one e-mail said. "If you're not going to do it, just tell me and I'll do it myself or find someone who will."
"Get it done, I'm tired of waiting," another e-mail said.
Witness Sally Still said Susanne Carno had told her that her husband had died in October 2001, more than a year before he actually died.
The two were enrolled in a psychology class with at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas that focused on grief and near death experiences, Still said.
"(Carno) said her husband had fallen while ice skating with her children and had a head injury," she said. "She said he was hemorrhaging. She was holding his head in a pool of blood."
Still said Carno told her that Richard was in a coma. A few weeks later Carno said "he had passed away."
Still said she tried to comfort Carno and even suggested she get counseling for the couple's four children.
She didn't suspect anything sinister until she recognized a weeping Carno on a Channel 13 news broadcast about a year later saying her husband had been killed. Still called a secret witness hotline. Prosecutors played the news story for jurors.
"I was speechless," Still said. "I couldn't believe what I was seeing."
Richard Carno's mother, Mary Ellen Hodder of Concord, Calif., said she was not surprised by her former daughter-in-law's ability to manipulate Still and others.
"She's a master manipulator," she said. "I accepted her because she was married to my son."
Carno and Ray each face four felony counts -- murder with the use of a deadly weapon, first-degree kidnapping with the use of a deadly weapon, robbery with a deadly weapon and conspiracy to commit murder.
Both siblings are eligible for a potential death sentence if convicted, a penalty Hodder said was OK with her.
"I'd like to see justice done," she said. "If the death penalty is appropriate, fine."
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