State rests, closings to be heard Monday
By John Joyce
Published in News on February 12, 2016 1:46 PM
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News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
James Howard gathers his notes and prepares to leave Courtroom Five Thursday. Howard is on trial for a double murder in 2009 and is representing himself. Closing remarks will be given Monday and jury deliberations will follow.
After three days of testimony, the trial of James Howard is ready to go to the jury. A verdict will have to wait until Monday, though, as presiding Judge Paul Jones has to return to Kinston today to handle Lenoir County business.
Both the state and the defense rested Thursday following three days of evidence -- mostly presented by the prosecution -- surrounding the 2009 double murder at the America's Best Value Inn at U.S. Highway 70 Bypass.
Howard, representing himself in the matter, is accused of shooting and killing Suryakat and Bahavanaben Patel, a married couple living and working at the hotel and, according to District Attorney Matthew Delbridge, hoping to become U.S. citizens.
According to testimony throughout the trial, Howard used to frequent the hotel and would be seen regularly with Mr. Patel.
Patel, known as "Papa Patel" and as "Mini Me" to those who knew and worked with him, always carried a pink cell phone.
The day after the murder, Dec. 19, 2009, coworkers discovered the Patels dead in their room. Missing from the room, along with the money and jewelry taken during the robbery, was the cell phone.
Detectives later found the cell phone in a dumpster in the Alpha Arms community where Howard's brother lived. DNA from the bag in which the cell phone was wrapped when discarded pointed back to him. Under pressure from police, the brother confessed to having received the phone from Howard the night of the murder with the instructions to "get rid of it."
DNA evidence found in the hotel room also pointed to Howard, but those findings were refuted by a defense expert, Maher Noureddine, Ph.D., who said updated protocols for DNA testing complicated the findings.
Rather than indicating Howard was present in the room, the findings simply concluded that his DNA could not be "excluded" from the samples taken, he said.
Delbridge worked to discredit Noureddine by suggesting that he only critiqued the findings of the State Bureau of Investigation crime lab, and that he had not conducted any DNA testing of his own that would exonerate Howard.
The defense rested after Noureddine's testimony. Jones excused the jury, which will report back to the courtroom Monday at 9:30 a.m. to hear closing arguments.
Howard, facing two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of robbery with a dangerous weapon, could potentially face life without parole.