BROOKSVILLE - The more Clifton Lamont Warren revealed in his taped confession about his involvement in the 2002 robbery that left Jennifer Snead dead, the more he incriminated himself. But like a man clinging to the end of a rope suspended over a canyon, he adhered to his original position:
He and Jacki Mulkey, an accomplice, came to Snead's Spring Hill apartment to rob a drug dealer and left without shooting Snead, he said on the tape played by Assistant State Attorney Don Scaglione during the second day of his trial Wednesday afternoon .
"I know I didn't do that, man" he told the detective who was interviewing him. "I know I didn't do it. My gun was on safety."
Warren is charged with first degree murder and home invasion and the state has filed notice of intent to seek the death penalty.
Scaglione's replay of the confession was the culmination of a day of testimony from five state witnesses, including the man who survived the home invasion, 31-year-old, Eddie Fagin of Brooksville. Warren said Fagin, a convicted drug dealer, was the target of the robbery.
The prosecution built part of its case on Fagin's statement to Hernando County Sheriff's Office that Warren delivered the fatal shot to Snead's head during the early morning robbery.
Four law enforcement agents who helped investigate the case also testified Wednesday. More witness testimony is expected today from a handful of witnesses who had waited all day in the lobby.
In opening arguments Monday, Jimmy Brown, Warren's lead defense attorney argued that what happened early morning Oct. 4, 2002 was not home invasion and therefore Snead's death was not first degree murder. Though Warren confessed to coming to the apartment with a mask, Brown said he was there to rough up two Sumter County drug dealers who were moving in on the territory of a friend.
Shorn of the dreadlocks he wore during pre-trial hearings, Warren was dressed in a silky royal blue dress shirt and tie. Brown attempted during cross examination of a Hernando County Sheriff's deputy to characterize Warren as a high school dropout who was a slow learner.
Bill Pope Jr, the deputy, is a relative of Warren's and was a school resource officer at Hernando High when Warren was a student there. Pope said Warren talks slow and mumbles. But Pope said he felt unqualified to evaluate Warren's intelligence or capacity for mischief.
"I'd say he was the quiet type," Pope said.
"Was he a leader or a follower?" Brown asked.
"It's much more difficult for me to answer that question," Pope replied.
Warren mumbles through most of the first hour of the two-and-a-half hour confession that Scaglione presented. He only raised his voice after Detective Carlos Douglas began to accuse him of fatally shooting Snead. On the tape, Warren haltingly confesses that he and Mulkey went to Snead's apartment with the intention of robbing it.
Warren said he had gone to Snead's apartment while on a cocaine and alcohol binge earlier that evening and later planned the robbery with Mulkey and Jonathan Mathis, a third man who Warren says drove their getaway car. He has not been charged with a crime.
Initially, Warren denied that he had a gun with him, but Douglas and another detective got him to admit he took along a .22-caliber gun.
Warren also denied witnessing the burglary. But later on in the tape, he said Mulkey knocked on the door of Snead's apartment and forced Fagin to his knees when Fagin answered the door. Mulkey shook Fagin down, removing $60 worth of jewelry, including a watch and rings, and taking $400 in cash, according to what Douglas said Fagin told him. Warren told detectives that his role in the robbery was to steal the telephone from one of the apartments in the bedroom so that the victims could not call 911.
Snead awoke during the commotion and came out of the bedroom wrapped in a towel, Warren said, referring to the bedspread that investigators retrieved from the apartment.
"She said, "What are you doing? Who are you' ?" Warren said. But he took the phone and was preparing to leave the apartment, when he heard a gunshot. He said he looked around to see Snead on the floor. Mulkey must have shot her, Warren said.
Douglas was heard on the tape rejecting Warren's accounts of what happened.
"Jack (Mulkey) couldn't have shot her," Douglas said. "He was the one who was patting Fagin down."
But during his cross examination of Deputy Pope, Brown implied that it would have been impossible for Warren to have shot Snead because the bullet that killed her was from a .38-caliber pistol.
"He can't fire a 380 from a 22, can he?" Brown asked.
"Not to my knowledge, no," Pope said after reminding Brown that he was not a weapons expert.
Brown also looked for cracks in Fagin's testimony. Fagin pleaded guilty last month to trafficking in cocaine and could be testifying to get a lighter sentence at his June sentencing hearing, Brown implied.
"Aren't you trying to use your testimony today to get a better deal?" he said.
"No sir," Fagin said. "I don't want to benefit from Jennifer's death getting me out of trouble."
- Kelly Virella can be reached at 352 848-1434. Send e-mail to kvirella@sptimes.com
