Defendant in murder trial takes stand

JEFFERSON

A man on trial for shooting his best friend 45 times took the stand in his own defense yesterday.

Freddie McDowell Jr. said he killed Drew Lee Howell after Howell had beaten him earlier in the night and later leveled a shotgun at him. Both men had been drinking heavily, according to testimony.

McDowell, 24, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of Howell, 19. Howell's body was found early on a Friday morning, June 30, 2006, in woods a couple of hundred feet from the Wilkes County vacation cabin where the friends had spent the week.

McDowell said he killed Howell sometime that Thursday night. He testified that he was sleeping off his drunkenness on a couch when Howell started yelling at him.

"I remember hearing his voice cussing.... He said, ‘Get up, I'm going to kill you,'" McDowell said. "I sat up. The next thing I saw was a shotgun pointed at my face."

Howell was standing in the kitchen, McDowell said. Defense attorney Jay Vannoy asked him what happened next.

"I panicked, sir," McDowell said. "He said he was going to kill me. I grabbed my pistol. The next thing I remember, I stuck my hand up. I said, ‘Drew what's going on?' The next thing he said (was), ‘Get up, I'm going to kill you.'"

McDowell said that Howell looked down. "I shot him," McDowell said. "I thought I was going to die."

He said that Howell then backed up against the refrigerator and grabbed his chest with one hand while still holding the shotgun, and when Howell moved to raise the shotgun, McDowell fired again.

"How many times?" Vannoy asked.

"I don't know sir," McDowell said. "I started shooting at him again, and he dropped the shotgun."

"Do you recall reloading?" Vannoy asked.

"No, sir," McDowell said.

"What happened next?" Vannoy asked.

McDowell said he has vague memories of walking around the house, afraid that Howell would come around the corner to get him, but that his next clear memory is waking up in Wilkes Regional Medical Center.

Earlier yesterday, a firearms expert for the prosecution had used the weapon from the killing -- a five-shot .38-caliber revolver -- to demonstrate for the jury that it would take at least two to three minutes to get off 45 shots.

Special Agent Shane Greene of the State Bureau of Investigation used dummy rounds. He fired off five shots -- click, click, click, click, click -- reloaded, and repeated the pattern. He noted that if the gun were firing live rounds, a shooter would also have to contend with recoil, smoke and a hot cylinder.

Vannoy had objected to the demonstration, saying that the length of time it took to fire the shots was speculative. Judge Ed Gregory ruled that the demonstration would be relevant to the contested issues.

Greene also testified that there were eight bullet holes in the front of the shorts that Howell was wearing, and that there was a cluster of shots in the groin area of the shorts.

Dr. Ellen Riemer, a forensic pathologist at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, testified that her autopsy of Howell showed that he was shot 14 times in the head and neck, 27 times in the torso, including the chest, abdomen and pelvic area; one time in the left arm; and three times in the thighs.

"He was just full of bullet holes everywhere," Riemer said. "There were numerous, numerous, dozens of bullet holes all over his body. In the thousands of cases I've done, I don't remember ever having so many bullet holes."

She testified that Howell's blood-alcohol level was 0.20 percent. Under North Carolina law, a person with a level of 0.08 percent is presumed to be impaired. McDowell testified that they had been drinking wine and liquor that day, but there was no testimony as to his blood-alcohol level.

McDowell said he considered Howell his best friend, and they spent most weekends together even after McDowell had moved to Raleigh to live with his girlfriend and her parents. McDowell's girlfriend's parents own the vacation house where McDowell and Howell were staying.

McDowell said that Howell had turned surly during their week in the mountains. Earlier on the day of the killing, McDowell said, Howell was drunk and told him that the preferential treatment that McDowell got from the girlfriend's family wasn't fair and that he would try to take it away if he could.

■ Monte Mitchell can be reached in Wilkesboro at 336-667-5691 or at mmitchell@wsjournal.com.