Retrial under way in fatal shooting

Retrial under way in fatal shooting

By John Lowman

The Facts

Published January 13, 2010ANGLETON — Reginald Carmen “did not know what he was walking into” when he was shot to death in his own home, authorities testified Tuesday.

His son stands accused of pulling the trigger.

Ashton Carmen, 18, is on trial for a second time on a murder charge in his father’s death on Dec. 8, 2005. A state appellate court in 2008 ruled the judge in his first trial erred by not allowing a self-defense instruction in the jury charge.

Ashton Carmen was 14 at the time of his father’s killing. He was tried as an adult and convicted Jan. 12, 2007, then sentenced to 50 years in prison.

If convicted again, his punishment could range from five to 99 years in prison.

Police said Ashton Carmen waited for his father to return to their Pearland home from work and shot him as he walked in the door.

Defense attorney Stan McGee said the boy was driven to the shooting by eight years of abuse by his father. At one point during Ashton Carmen’s childhood, McGee said the boy was hospitalized because of physical abuse.

“Ashton was so fearful that when his father arrived at home, he acted like an immature 14-year-old, not a cold-blooded killer,” McGee said during opening statements Tuesday in Judge Randall Hufstetler's fourth-floor courtroom at the Brazoria County Courthouse. “When he was threatened by his father, he took the gun and shot his father.”

Ashton Carmen regularly ran away from his father’s home because he wanted to be with his mother, McGee said. In taped and written confessions objected to by McGee, Ashton Carmen said he shot his father because he was afraid he was going to be beaten. Reginald Carmen “yelled something” before falling to the foyer floor, but neither prosecutors nor defense attorneys said what those words were.

Prosecutor Jessica Pulcher told jurors Carmen broke into his father’s bedroom and found a gun, then waited for the man to come home from work. Reginald Carmen was shot three times in the left side of his back, she said.

Wearing a long-sleeved, black-and-white checked shirt, black shoes and black pants, Ashton Carmen sat quietly thorough the testimony.

Officer Robert DeSilva was the first person at the home after Reginald Carmen’s employer asked police to check on his well-being. Police kicked in the front door to enter after DeSilva said he saw a man lying motionless in the foyer.

“I checked the man’s pulse to check if he was alive,” DeSilva said. “His left wrist … rigor mortis had set in. It was stiff.”

A black bandana with a white pattern covered the man’s face.

Pulcher said when Reginald Carmen walked from the garage into a foyer, his son shot him. Herrera told jurors Reginald Carmen initially was not aware of what was happening.

“From the position of the body, it appeared the victim was walking from the laundry room area to the dining room area,” Herrera said. “It appeared to me he did not know what he was walking into.”

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