Jury’s deliberation continues in murder trial

When murder suspect Theodore F. Stewart took the stand on his own behalf Tuesday, he began his testimony by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

Stewart, 26, then proceeded to tell the jury of nine women and three men how he placed the knife under the throat of a mentally ill woman who was later found bludgeoned, raped, choked and slashed to death in March 2001.

The jury will continue deliberating today the first-degree murder case against Stewart, who is charged with killing 41-year-old Diana Dee Wideman, whose body was found five years ago in her apartment at 123 N. Bernard St.

On Dec. 20, a different jury took only 90 minutes to convict co-defendant Raymond L. Nelson III of first-degree murder in connection with Wideman’s death.

During Stewart’s testimony, he admitted that he and Nelson were planning a robbery that night, but he placed most of the blame of Wideman’s murder on Nelson, Deputy Prosecutor Larry Steinmetz said.

“One can only imagine what was going through Ms. Wideman’s mind at that time, when that man and Mr. Nelson entered her apartment,” Steinmetz said.

In 2004, after DNA evidence linked Nelson to the rape. Spokane police detectives interviewed Nelson who implicated himself and Stewart, who had previously been named as the only suspect.

Prior to Nelson’s statements, detectives were only able to confirm what Stewart had told them – that he entered Wideman’s apartment after she had been killed to smoke some of her cigarettes.

Armed with Nelson’s statements, Detective Minde Connelly interviewed Stewart in June 2004. During a 31-minute interview that was recorded on videotape, Stewart admitted that he “got his nerve up” and slashed Wideman’s throat, Steinmetz said.

Assistant Public Defender Steve Reich tried to cast doubt on that taped confession, saying that police did not record the 90 minutes of interrogation prior to the 31-minute recording. He compared it to a child asking a parent for a cookie so many times that the parent finally gives the child a cookie.

“What you see is the end result of three years of interrogation,” Reich said. “This is the only recording that says what they wanted you to hear. And Mr. Stewart is stuck with statements he made to get police to leave him alone.”

Steinmetz countered that Reich’s suggestion that police coerced a confession from Stewart was false.

“If you think that the detectives or any law enforcement officer caused the defendant to make the statements that he did by using hot lamps, rubber hoses or anything to force the defendant to make the statements that he did, then find him not guilty,” he told the jury. “The courtroom is no place to base a conviction on circumstances such as that.”

Reich apologized to the jury for Stewart’s many outbursts during the trial. He explained that Stewart believes he’s wrongly accused, and he suffered severe head trauma when he was 17, which caused him to be more impulsive.

“Mr. Stewart’s testimony, some of it, sounds very bad,” Reich said. “But if he was going to testify falsely, he wouldn’t admit to putting a knife to Diana Wideman’s throat and asking her, ‘You don’t really want to die. Why did you say kill me?’ “

Reich argued that detectives searched for answers, and they got those answers from Stewart. “The problem was they didn’t necessarily care if the answers were the correct ones or not,” Reich said.

“Could he have done more to help Diana Wideman, should he have? Yes,” Reich said. “Morally he’s not in a very high position. We have to separate our emotions from the morality of the situation … and find him not guilty.”