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Wtness says friend admitted killing

The man testified his best buddy admitted killing his wife during an argument, then burning her body on a remote roadside.

By COLLEEN JENKINS
Published January 26, 2005

NEW PORT RICHEY - Sean Conner could tell something was wrong.

Just hours before, he had been drinking and having a good time with his best friend and band-mate, Scott Dykstra, and Dykstra's estranged wife, 35-year-old Lisa Marie Simpson. Now, his buddy was shaking and distraught.

Then, Dykstra's story spilled forth.

"He looked at me and said he killed her," Conner said. "He said that he had strangled her and set her on fire."

Conner recounted those words Tuesday, the first day of Dykstra's first-degree murder trial. Dykstra faces life in prison if convicted.

Here's what Conner said Dykstra told him next: Dykstra got into an argument with Simpson in the kitchen of the Hudson home where he had been staying. She called him a loser, pointed in his face and pushed him around.

Dykstra told Conner that he grabbed her by the neck and knocked her to the floor. Then he put a pillow over her face and suffocated her. Once she was dead, he dragged her by the feet to a car outside. At a gas station, he filled a milk jug he had taken from the kitchen with $1 of gas.

Then, on the side of unpaved Limit Drive in Port Richey, Dykstra lit Simpson's body on fire, Conner testified.

Assistant State Attorney Mike Halkitis told jurors the crime happened early on Nov. 29, 2003. Later that evening, after Conner decided to alert police to his friend's story, Dykstra, then 37, called him to discuss the incident. Authorities recorded the conversation, which was played for jurors Tuesday.

"Dude, you don't know nothing," Dykstra told Conner. "You never saw me ... I'm counting on you, man."

During his brief opening statement, defense attorney Sam Williams stressed that law enforcement had no physical evidence connecting his client to Simpson's death.

But Halkitis countered that, time and again, Dykstra has shared details of the killing.

He did so in off-the-cuff remarks to Florida Department of Law Enforcement Special Agent Rick Singer, who testified that Dykstra told him: "I'm not the monster you think I am. She snapped. Something in her head went evil. I'm not a psycho killer."

He did so with other inmates, telling one the argument began over a guitar of his that Simpson had pawned.

And he did so Friday, during a recess from a court hearing in preparation for this week's trial. According to Halkitis, Dykstra told another inmate, "I murdered Lisa, and the state's never going to be able to prove it."

The trial resumes today.

[Last modified January 26, 2005, 00:13:15]