An emotional jury Thursday decided pharmacist Jerome Jay Ersland was guilty of first degree murder for fatally shooting a masked robber two years ago inside an Oklahoma City drugstore.

Jurors chose life in prison as punishment.

Two female coworkers at Reliable Discount Pharmacy told jurors Ersland was a hero who saved their lives on May 19, 2009. But prosecutors called him an executioner who shot a wounded, unarmed robber five more times after the robber fell to the floor unconscious and was no longer a threat.

The eight woman and four men  were solemn as as they filed back into an Oklahoma County courtroom after wrapping up deliberations in three hours and thirty minutes. Some had tears in their eyes. Each answered, “yes”, in a quiet voice when the judge asked them one at a time if that was the verdict.

“It was a really hard day,” one juror said later.

“All of us took this seriously,” another juror said. “It was a very emotional day…..We’re judged by the laws of our society. You have to live within those laws. Tough or not, you still have to live within those laws.”

Ersland, 59, of Chickasha, had no reaction as Oklahoma County District  Judge Ray C. Elliot read the verdict. Sheriff deputies immediately handcuffed him and led him to jail.

Formal sentencing was set for July 11. The judge has the authority to suspend part or all of the life term but that rarely happens in murder cases.

Ersland had suspected a conviction, giving away his pet dog, Winston, on Wednesday. During a break in the trial Wednesday, he showed off pictures of the dog. “I sure will miss him,” he said.

The case set off a national debate in 2009 when prosecutors charged the pharmacist and made public the security camera recordings of the shooting. Ersland had considerable support at first but that dropped off when it turned out he had fabricated his claims of being a combat veteran of the first Gulf War.

Killed during the robbery was Antwun “Speedy” Parker, 16, of Oklahoma City. He was shot first in the head then five more times in the abdomen and chest. The second shots were fired from 18 to 24 inches away, according to testimony. Police investigators determined he did not have a gun.

After the verdict Thursday, Parker’s mother, Cleta Jennings, and other relatives huddled together in tears outside the courtroom. “Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus,” they said.

Ersland did not testify during the trial. He told police he shot Parker five more times before chasing a second robber out of the pharmacy. The security camera recordings show he actually shot Parker again after chasing the second robber away, coming back inside the store and getting a second gun. Ersland changed his account of the shooting after the security camera recording became public.

In the police interview, he referred to Parker as the “guy that I nailed.”

Ersland sat stone faced during closing arguments Thursday as prosecutors repeatedly called him an executioner.

“This defendant made himself judge, jury, executioner,” Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Chance said before a packed courtroom.

She said Parker was no longer a threat after being shot in the head. She said, “He was a 16 year old boy lying unconscious on the floor.” 

The pharmacist lead defense attorney said Ersland acted in self defense. “He did something to protect himself and the two women,” attorney Irven Box said.

Box called the pharmacist a hero who had the courage to tell his two co-workers to go hide while he took care of the two robbers.

The second robber, Jevontai Ingram, 14, fled. Ingram pulled out a gun inside the pharmacy but did not fire it, according to testimony. He was caught days later. He has pleaded guilty to first degree murder for his role in his friends death. He will be released from a juvenile detention facility before his 19th birthday if he completes a treatment plan.

In his closing argument, Box had jurors close their eyes and imagine they were in the pharmacy when the two robbers come in, one pointing a gun and pulling back on the gun’s slide. He asked jurors to imagine shooting one robber, chasing the other and coming back in the pharmacy, with an empty gun, where the first robber still was.

He then asked jurors to open their eyes and told them 45 seconds had passed. He said thats how much time passed for the pharmacist before he shot again.

“This wasn’t a basketball game where he can call a timeout,” Box said.

Prosecutors told jurors in closing arguments Thursday that the evidence proves Parker never moved again after a shot to the head knocked him to the pharmacy floor. They said Ersland’s own actions prove he didn’t consider the wounded robber a threat when he shot him again.

“Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, an execution,” District Attorney David Prater said.

During the closing arguments, Prater played for jurors again the security camera recordings of the shooting. He stopped it at points, telling jurors the pharmacist turned his back to the downed robber to get a second gun to shoot the robber again.

“It’s a human trait. You don’t turn your back on something your afraid of,” Prater said.

Prosecutors told jurors Ersland lied to police about what happened during the shooting, trying to come up with a good story to cover his wrongdoing. They said he underestimated how much homicide detectives would investigate.

They also reminded jurors he had lied about killing people during the first Gulf War. They said his military records show he was at Altus Air force Base in 1991 and never was in Combat.

Prosecutors also reminded jurors of testimony Ersland had faked a gunshot wound in an effort to support his defense. “He lies about everything,” Prater said.

Box conceded that the pharmacist has said some “goofy things” and had facts wrong in his police interview and about his military record. He argued that didn’t change what the pharmacist perceived inside the pharmacy.

Jurors were given the option of finding Ersland guilty of first degree manslaughter instead or of acquitting him completely.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys have been ordered not to comment on the case until after the formal sentencing. An appeal is expected.

Ersland had been free on $100,000 bail. He had a handcuffed key on him when he went through a courthouse security checkpoint Thursday morning, sheriff deputies said. He gave up the handcuff key when confronted about it.

Earlier this month, another jury convicted the two men who planned the drugstore robbery of fist degree murder. That jury decided Emanuel D. “E Man” Mitchell, 33, and Anthony D. “Black” Morrison, 45 , should spend life in prison. The two talked the teenagers into doing the robbery and waited nearby in getaway cars.

Law Offices of Matt Swain

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A Mustang man who admits to fatally shooting his father two years ago is asking a jury to acquit him of first-degree murder on insanity grounds.

Morgan E. Cline,  20, went on trial Monday in Oklahoma County District Court. His defense is one that is rarely used at trial in Oklahoma. It is also rarely successful.

Defense attorney Marna Franklin told jurors Tuesday in her opening statement that Cline was “a very, very sick boy” who did not know right from wrong when he shot Richard A. Cline, 58, in bed at the oilman’s Oklahoma City home early April 18, 2009.

She said the high school dropout believed people could read his thoughts, experienced hallucinations of things crawling on his skin and heard voices in his head that he thought were demons or ghosts.

“Morgan Cline is not your normal kid. He is mentally ill,” the defense attorney said.

Prosecutor Suzanne Lavenue in her opening statement pointed to evidence that she contends proves Cline did know right from wrong. She told jurors, for instance, that Cline told one younger brother by phone shortly after the shooting to call police. She called him methodical in his planning.

She also told jurors he said to his mother afterward, before he turned himself in, that he had three options: go to prison, go to a mental institution or kill himself.

Morgan Cline and two younger brothers, Eric and Henry, lived with their mother in Mustang. The two younger brothers spent every other weekend with their father at his Oklahoma City home but Morgan Cline rarely went there, according to testimony.

On April 18, 2009, Morgan Cline, then 18, came in the Oklahoma City home with a rifle and shot his father in the head, according to evidence in the case.

Henry Cline, 16, testified Wednesday he saw his brother from a distance outside their father’s house when his brother turned himself in. “Morgan looked completely not like himself. Out of body, I guess,” Henry Cline told jurors.

Henry Cline said, “What I meant by that – this may sound weird – but, like, he didn’t have a soul.”

Eric Cline, 18, testified Morgan Cline asked him by phone to check to see if their dad was dead. He testified he got no response from his father and replied, “I think he’s dead.” Eric Cline testified Morgan Cline then said, “Good,” and admitted shooting their father “because I hate him.” He testified Morgan Cline then said, “I love you guys. Call the police.”

Eric Cline told police Morgan Cline also had said, “It was for the best,” according to police reports. Eric Cline did not recall that in his testimony Wednesday.

Jurors spent almost two hours Wednesday watching a series of YouTube videos the three sons made mocking their father. In the videos, Morgan Cline impersonated the father, portraying the man as an abusive, self-centered man who cruelly divorced his wife 10 years earlier.

Morgan Cline told police “he believed his dad is evil,” according to police reports. He told police he had “wanted to kill himself and take his dad with him.”

If convicted of first-degree murder, he faces up to life in prison or life in prison without parole. If found not guilty by reason of insanity, he would be sent to a mental hospital and could not be released without a judge’s approval.

Law Offices of Matt Swain

405-501-0827

The tears 16 year old KaleighLynn Fryer couldnt produce the morning she found her father dead in a pool of blood burst forth Monday when she was convicted of his murder.

It took a Logan County jury about two and a half hours to convict Fryer of first degree murder. She was 15 at the time of her fathers death. Jurors recommended she be sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole. A formal sentencing will be June 17 at Logan County Courthouse.

Fryer’s married boyfriend, Jerry Jerone Chiles Jr., 22, admitted to stabbing Lewis Keith Fryer, 50, to death in the man’s bedroom about 3 a.m. on May 12, 2010. Chiles testified against Kaleigh Fryer in return for a sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole.

Chiles testified Fryer asked him repeatedly to kill her father, left the back door open for him and told him where in the house to find a knife, her father’s keys, a wallet and other items he was instructed to take.

Chiles then stole Lewis Fryer’s car and drove it to south Oklahoma City, where he abandoned it before walking to Crossroads Mall. Chiles testified he called Kaleigh Fryer just before 7 a.m. and asked her to come pick him up at the mall.

She told Chiles there was a lot of blood and that she was going to call 911. Phone records show Kaleigh Fryer did not sleep through the murder at her father’s Guthrie home as she told investigators.

Instead, she checked her voicemail about 3:30 a.m. and used the phone to access the Internet.

Phone records also confirmed Chiles’ claim that he had called Kaleigh Fryer from a pay phone at the mall just before she called 911. She told police she discovered her father’s body when she woke up about 7 a.m.

Investigators noted in their reports on the morning of the murder that Kaleigh Fryer tried to cry while they talked with her but could not produce tears.

She was unable to hold tears back Monday as the jurors were called one by one and affirmed they agreed with the guilty verdict.

During closing arguments, prosecutors described her as a cold, heartless killer who manipulated the simple and childlike Chiles into murdering her father because he was mean to her and made her do chores. Investigators believe Kaleigh Fryer thought she would be able to live with her mother if her father was killed.

“Kaleigh Fryer’s father is dead because she chose Jerry Chiles,” said Lesley March, Logan County assistant district attorney. “Lewis Fryer would be alive today in Guthrie but for Kaleigh’s plan.”

Kaleigh Fryer’s defense attorney, Eric Reynolds, used his closing argument to accuse Chiles of lying to get a lighter sentence for the crime. Reynolds said Chiles likely killed Lewis Fryer because he believed Kaleigh Fryer was pregnant and feared going to jail for having sex with her while she was underage.

“Some people are extremely skilled liars,” Reynolds told the jury. “Jerry Chiles lied to you. He lied to the police. He lied to his girlfriend. He changed his story based on his audience.”

After the verdict was read, Lewis Fryer’s brother, Roy Fryer, said he wanted to thank investigators and prosecutors for doing their jobs and the jury for seeing through Kaleigh Fryer’s lies.

Roy Fryer said the death of one family member at the hands of another has taken a toll.

“We’re a close family,” he said. “We lean on each other like family should. That’s how we will get through this.”

Law Offices of Matt Swain

405-501-0827