Convicted killer says defendant had role in attack
URBANA – The man already convicted of murdering Jerry Haigh in his Champaign home three years ago told a jury hearing co-defendant Crystal Myrick's case that she took an active role in killing Sue Haigh.
Kenneth Sean Kelly, 37, a Champaign native, also testified that he took two tablets of the drug Ecstasy on the day Jerry and Sue Haigh were bludgeoned and stabbed to death in their home at 1702 Scottsdale Drive, in what one detective described as a massacre.
Kelly testified that he met Myrick, 32, in 1999, and that they have a son, now 9, in common. They were living in Iowa City, Iowa, with Myrick's uncle and co-defendant, Russell Pitcher, 52, at the apartment of another man, when they decided to make a trip to Champaign in July 2006 to see the Haighs.
Kelly described himself as friends with Jerry Haigh, 58, but never explained how he came to know him. He said he had been to the Haigh home about 30 times "socially" but had seen Sue Haigh, 66, only a handful of times.
The Haighs' daughter, Kim Shackelford, earlier testified that she had never heard of Kelly, Myrick or Pitcher from her late parents.
In almost three hours of testimony Friday, Kelly laid out his version of what happened in the home on July 1, 2006 – a version at odds with earlier statements the jury has heard from Myrick and Pitcher.
Kelly said he went to the home to borrow money from Jerry Haigh and that Mr. Haigh let him and Myrick in.
Kelly said he and Myrick were visiting with the couple around the dining room table and that Mrs. Haigh didn't like what Myrick was saying.
"Jerry told me I had to control her (Myrick) or else and me and him had words. Jerry spit in my face and that made me very angry. I lost my temper and grabbed a rubber mallet sitting on the table. I repeatedly hit him with it in the face, ribs, back, wherever I could hit him," Kelly said.
Kelly denied that he ever stabbed Mr. Haigh and said he assumed that the knife found in his back when his body was discovered must have been put there by Myrick during the few moments that Kelly went outside to get Pitcher.
Kelly said as he was using the mallet to hit Mr. Haigh, Myrick was using a meat cleaver from a butcher block to stab Mrs. Haigh in the back and neck.
"I think about 19 or 20 times," Kelly said of the number of times he believed Myrick stabbed her.
"I never touched Sue," he said, adding he assumed that Myrick was also responsible for the multiple blows to Mrs. Haigh's body.
Kelly claimed that Pitcher had nothing to do with the attack on the Haighs but only helped clean up the blood.
On Thursday, Pitcher himself testified that he twice slashed Jerry Haigh's throat in an attempt to get Mr. Haigh to tell them where they could find money or drugs. Pitcher testified he got $85 out of Jerry Haigh's wallet and a handful of costume jewelry. Kelly said he didn't know if the others got any valuables from the home.
"I left empty-handed," he said.
Both men testified they cleaned the kitchen with laundry detergent and bleach. Kelly said they spent almost an hour doing so.
"It was a mess," he said.
The trial before Judge Heidi Ladd is scheduled to resume Monday morning. The jury will next hear recorded statements that Kelly gave to Champaign police Sgt. John Schweighart at the time of his arrest in October 2007.
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