Jurors hear from accused in murder of Champaign couple

URBANA — A Champaign County jury has been spared no gore in the details of how a Champaign couple were slaughtered in their home three years ago.

For several hours Wednesday and Thursday, the jury heard the taped statement that Crystal Myrick gave a Champaign police detective about her role in the fatal beatings and stabbings of Jeremiah and Sue Haigh.

But for the admissions of the 32-year-old drifter, Champaign police might still have an open murder case on their hands because the crime scene was cleaned, leaving virtually no physical evidence behind.

Jerry Haigh, 58, and his wife Sue Haigh, 66, were murdered in their home at 1702 Scottsdale Drive on July 1, 2006. Their bodies were discovered three days later by friends, concerned when they couldn’t reach them. They were lying on their kitchen floor, their hands touching. A knife protruded from Jerry Haigh’s back. A pathologist testified that both sustained multiple stab wounds and repeated blows.

On Thursday, Myrick’s co-defendant, Russell Pitcher, 52, testified that he, Myrick and Kenneth Sean Kelly, 32, went to the residence at Kelly’s suggestion to rob the couple of cash, drugs and valuables. Pitcher said all he got was a handful of costume jewelry and $85 out of Jerry Haigh’s wallet. 
Much as Myrick did in her 3½-hour long statement to Champaign Detective Dale Rawdin, Pitcher minimized his role in the killings. He described himself as Myrick’s uncle, saying he’d known her since she was 16 and lived off and on with her and Kelly and their son in Bloomington, Ind., and in Iowa City, Iowa. He said the three of them drove together to Champaign on July 1, 2006, to rob the Haighs. Kelly knew the couple, Pitcher said, and told him they’d have drugs and money in their home.

According to Pitcher, Jerry Haigh opened the door and allowed Kelly and Myrick inside. When Pitcher finished smoking and went inside minutes later, the Haighs were seated at their dining room table, with Kelly behind Mr. Haigh and Myrick behind Mrs. Haigh.

When Jerry Haigh wouldn’t tell them where the cash or drugs were — Pitcher later said he never found drugs — Pitcher said he went behind Mr. Haigh and “nicked his throat to try to get him to cooperate.”

“It was about a six-inch slice, enough to get a little blood, enough to get him to relate where the money and drugs were,” he testified.

When Jerry Haigh continued to tell him there was no money or drugs, Pitcher said he “sliced him again a little deeper in the same spot.” Pitcher said he used a skinning knife that he typically used in hunting.

In a rather flat, detached tone, Pitcher described how Kelly hit Jerry Haigh in the head repeatedly with a baseball bat and Myrick stabbed Sue Haigh in the neck and shoulders with a knife from a nearby butcher block.

Pitcher said “everybody was screaming,” and the Haighs were trying to get away, but he said he left the room to search the house for valuables.

“In my personal opinion, it looked like they had everything under control. They were beating and stabbing them pretty good so I wasn’t needed,” he said.

Returning minutes later, he said the husband and wife weren’t moving and he assumed they were dead. Pitcher said Kelly decided they should clean the scene; on cross-examination, he said it was Myrick’s idea.

All three, he agreed, took part in cleaning the kitchen-dining room area of as much blood as they could. Pitcher said he carried two bottles of Wisk and a bottle of bleach up from the basement. They used towels they found in a closet.  He estimated they spent about a half-hour cleaning and were in the house a total of about two hours.

Pitcher’s attorney, Tom Koester of Urbana, was present while his client, a multiple-convicted felon, testified. Pitcher has yet to be tried for the murders but admitted he was testifying in hopes of getting a sentence of less than natural life. He said prosecutors had made him no offers or promises.

Kelly pleaded guilty more than a year ago to Jerry Haigh’s murder and is serving a 50-year sentence.

In her taped statement to Rawdin, Myrick gave different versions of what happened and who did what. Near the end, she beat her head against the wall, slapped her own face and maintained she had no idea that Kelly and Pitcher intended to kill the Haighs.

“They said to stay out of the way. I didn’t know they were going to hurt them,” she told Rawdin.

Myrick’s volunteered statement came in October 2007 after she had been convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison for residential arson for a bizarre incident in which she set fire to a small portion of the exterior of Kelly’s grandmother’s home in Urbana.

Before that, Champaign police had not had any breaks in the investigation.

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