A man on trial in the slaying of a housesitter at a drug dealer's home says his brother did it.
By CARY DAVIS
Published July 17, 2003
NEW PORT RICHEY - Jurors this week heard from two different Glen Oyers.
One, in a tape recorded interview with detectives, admitted that he took part in a robbery targeting a drug dealer known as Shorty. But Shorty wasn't home, and the man who answered the door took a bullet to the brain.
The other Glen Oyer took the stand Wednesday and said his statement to detectives had been a lie. The detectives had cajoled him into making incriminating statements, he said, and he gave them what they wanted. The truth, he said, was that he, his brother and his cousin went to Shorty's house to buy a bag of marijuana.
Something went wrong, and his brother fired the fatal shot, Oyer testified.
It took jurors just 25 minutes late Wednesday to decide that the more believable Glen Oyer was the one they heard on the tape, not the one who testified in the flesh.
After a two-day trial, the jury found Oyer, 24, guilty of first-degree felony murder. The panel relied on a state law that says if a defendant participates in a robbery that ends in a homicide, he or she is guilty of first-degree murder.
As required by law, Pasco-Pinellas Circuit Judge Michael Andrews immediately sentenced Oyer to life in prison without parole.
Andrews asked Oyer if he had anything to say. "No sir," Oyer replied.
The murder victim, Robert Dean, is survived by five teenage daughters. The 35-year-old Dean was shot in the head on Aug. 27, 2000, while housesitting for his landlord, Terry Nelson, a drug dealer known around his Holiday neighborhood as Shorty.
"Justice was served but it doesn't bring my father back," Patty Dean, 18, the victim's oldest daughter, said after the verdict.
Oyer's cousin, Ronald Spaulding, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in March and was sentenced to 30 years in prison. His brother, John Oyer, is awaiting trial.
Prosecutors said the Oyer brothers and Spaulding hatched a plan to rob Shorty of money and drugs. All three donned black clothes, brandished handguns and approached Shorty's Flora Avenue mobile home.
They were surprised when Dean, a handyman who was a foot taller than Shorty, came to the door at 2:30 a.m. There was an argument, then a struggle, then a gunshot. Paramedics arrived to find Dean on his back in a pool of blood, his pockets emptied and turned inside out.
Glen Oyer, in his testimony Wednesday, said his brother took a swing at Dean, and the punch was accompanied by a gunshot.
"I seen my brother swing," Oyer said. "I heard a shot."
Others told a different story. John Oyer identified his brother as the shooter. So did Glen Oyer's former girlfriend, who drove the three men to Shorty's mobile home.
"He deserves what he got," Patty Dean said of Glen Oyer.
- Cary Davis covers west Pasco courts. He can be reached in west Pasco at 869-6236 or toll-free at 1-800-333-7505, ext. 6236 or cbdavis@sptimes.com
