Citing media coverage, judge rejects delay in Owens trial

By Julie Hutchinson, Special to the Rocky

Originally published 09:30 p.m., May 8, 2008
Updated 11:53 p.m., May 8, 2008

Sir Mario Owens.

An Arapahoe County district judge rejected a bid for a two- week recess in the death penalty trial of Sir Mario Owens after his lawyers requested more time to study new evidence.

Arapahoe County District Judge Gerald Rafferty said a delay that long would be "too fraught with danger" because of the intense media coverage of the trial.

Members of the jury were questioned individually on whether they had been exposed to any media coverage since the trial began April 7. Final arguments are slated for today.

Owens, 23, is on trial in the June 2005 killings of Javad Marshall-Fields and his fiancee, Vivian Wolfe.

Marshall-Fields was scheduled to testify against Owens in a murder trial the week after he and Wolfe were shot in their car at the corner of South Dayton Street and East Idaho Place.

No witnesses to the murders have come forward.

The judge allowed Owens' lawyers several hours to argue that a black Camaro discovered at an Aurora Police Department impound lot earlier this week, after they had rested their defense, could provide information relevant to the case.

Following the murders, defense and prosecution investigators had been told that the Camaro had been released by Aurora police and could not be found.

Aurora Detective Gretchen Fronapfel testified that she discovered Tuesday that a black Camaro, which may have been involved in the killings, had been sitting in a department impound lot since the summer of 2005. She said she became curious about the status of the Camaro after it had been mentioned during testimony in the trial.

Fronapfel said she immediately told the Arapahoe County district attorney about the car.

Forensics investigator Joseph Snyder testified that he examined the Camaro after Fronap- fel's discovery but said he needed more time to process samples of paint, glass and metal to confirm whether the car had been involved in the shootings of Marshall-Fields and Wolfe.

Arapahoe County Deputy District Attorney John Hower said the discovery of the black Camaro "is not an issue," considering other evidence introduced during the trial.

Owens is serving a life sentence without parole in the death of Gregory Vann in 2004. Vann, a friend of Marshall- Fields, was killed when he tried to break up a fight in an Aurora park. Marshall-Fields witnessed the killing of Vann and was to have testified against Owens.