Testimony set to continue in murder trial
By John Joyce
Published in News on February 10, 2016 1:46 PM
Testimony continued today in the murder trial of James Carnell Howard, the man Goldsboro police say shot and killed two hotel employees in a 2009 robbery.
Howard, representing himself, asked one question of one witness throughout all of Tuesday's testimony.
According to the prosecution, Howard and his girlfriend, Alexis "Angel" Gurganus, frequented the America's Best Value Inn in Goldsboro up until the time of the murder.
"She stayed there 17 times in the 30 days leading up to the shooting," District Attorney Matthew Delbridge told the jury. "And guess who was with her," he said, pointing at Howard.
In his opening statement, Delbridge informed the jury his case would rely heavily on physical evidence. He described how DNA taken from the doorknob inside the victims' hotel room -- Suryakat and Bahavanaben Patel lived and worked in the hotel -- and how Mr. Patel's cell phone was traced back to Howard.
Delbridge said the killer entered the Patels' room, killed the couple firing at least five shots, and stripping them of all of their valuables, including Patel's pink flip phone. Investigators were able to trace the phone, still operating, to a dumpster in the Alpha Arms community where Howard's brother lived.
Under pressure from the police, his brother confessed to receiving the phone from Howard the night of the murder, and disposing of it at Howard's request.
Delbridge described how the Patels were known well throughout the community surrounding the hotel, and how Howard had been seen frequently in the company of Mr. Patel, known at the hotel as "Mini Me" due to his diminutive stature.
The last time the two men were seen together was the last time Patel was seen alive, he said.
Thirty days after the double murder, investigators working on an unrelated robbery went to the Irish Inn, another hotel in Goldsboro, to arrest Howard. In his room they found a firearm behind his bed. Forensics experts later matched the bullets and gun to those used to kill the Patels.
Delbridge paraded a host of witnesses to and from the stand Tuesday, including the hotel maintenance man that used a master key to enter the Patels' room the day after the murder when they failed to report for work, and the police officers who responded to the scene.
Capt. Dwayne Dean, the lead investigator in the case who was at the time a sergeant with the investigations bureau, took the stand late Tuesday afternoon. His testimony was to resume this morning.
Howard, who maintains his innocence, asked only one question during Tuesday's testimony. He asked retired Goldsboro police officer Glenn Hales, one of the first to arrive at the scene, whether the door to the hotel room was open, locked and closed or unlocked but closed when he arrived.
Hales said the door was closed, but he could not recall whether the maintenance man had to unlock it again after he had opened it the first time, or if was left unlocked.