Dressed in dark clothing, the four teenage boys - two of them lugging baseball bats - crept up to the home of Leon Peterson without saying a word.
No one responded when they first rang the doorbell, so Kerry Shane Soper and three other boys went to the carport to knock on the side door of the Cottonwood Heights home. Jason "JJ" Doorman knocked softly three times,and then he and John Clayton held the bats above their heads and waited.The door opened about 6 inches and Doorman immediately kicked it with his foot and slammed his body against it.
"He got about one foot inside the door and three shots were fired instantly. I heard JJ moan as soon as they were fired," Soper said Tuesday in 3rd District Court.
His testimony came during the first day of trial for Allison Bravene Peterson, who is charged with aggravated burglary and is accused of orchestrating a plan to beat or kill her estranged husband so she could retain custody of the couple's daughter, 22 months old at the time.
Soper told the four-man, four-woman jury that he tried to look inside the house but couldn't see in the dark. He bolted after the others who were dashing from the scene, ducked behind a bush to see if Leon Peterson had followed them and then drove off with the others, leaving Doorman lying dead on the carport floor.
"I was in total shock. I didn't know what to do," Soper said.
Soper said he drove a couple of blocks to where Allison Peterson and his girlfriend, Kandi Mlynar, were waiting for them. "All I could get out at that point was `JJ's been shot,' " he said. "Allison kept saying, `I can't believe he went to the door with a gun.' "
Mlynar, who together with Soper worked under Peterson's supervision at Red Lobster restaurant, testified Tuesday that she became friends with Allison Peterson and her "shoulder to cry on." Peterson told her she was a battered wife and was angry she did not have custody of the couple's child but still had to pay child support.
Peterson began to talk more openly about the hatred she had for her estranged husband and often spoke about how she wanted him injured or killed, Mlynar and others testified.
Talk about killing her husband intensified, and Peterson and other co-workers discussed specific ways the task could be performed. "She asked me if I knew anybody who could do it," Mlynar said of Peterson.
Mlynar talked to Doorman and two of this friends about Peterson's situation, and Doorman volunteered to beat up her estranged husband, Mlynar said. Peterson gave Mlynar a photograph of her husband, his work address and home address, including three maps of the house showing where he and their daughter slept, where Leon Peterson kept his guns and even where the intruders could help themselves to items such as TVs, stereos, VCRs and other valuables, according to Mlynar.
Lea Stowell, who also worked at the restaurant, testified that she overheard conversations Peterson had about killing her husband and saw Peterson drawing the map of the home and giving it to Mlynar. Peterson wanted the break-in to look like a gang-related burglary and said she wanted gang graffiti spray painted on the walls, Stowell testified.
"If they were to kill him, they were supposed to take his body and bury it somewhere," Mlynar said. Peterson's plan was to stop by the house the next morning, see that her husband was not there and claim he had abandoned the child, thereby regaining custody of the child, Stowell said.
But during opening statements, defense attorney Neal Gunnarson said it was Mlynar and not Peterson who masterminded the plans to assault Leon Peterson.
"Allison was the victim in this case as much as the victim who was actually killed," he said.
Gunnarson said Mlynar has contacts with gang members and "loved the idea" of getting someone to attack Leon Peterson for the things he had allegedly done to his wife. He said Mlynar made the plan up herself because she wanted to be a hero.
The attorney said his client made the maps of her husband's home only because Mlynar was "always harping at her" to tell her about the east-side house and what it was like. He said Mlynar stole the photograph of Peterson's husband from Peterson's purse and said Peterson never realized the "four hoods" were planning to beat up her husband until it was too late.
"Allison is a dupe in this and Kandi set her up," Gunnarson told the jury.
"You'll find it ironic she (Mlynar) is the only one not charged with this action . . . if she will say Allison did it, that she was the one behind it."
Mlynar admitted she was deeply involved as the "link" in the incident but has been given no formal immunity for her testimony. She has said, however, that she has received assurances that no charges will be filed against her.
Prosecutor Robert Stott said Peterson convinced the others to embark on the "very dangerous and very stupid mission" by convincing them her husband was "mean and evil and was beating her up."
Clayton testified Wednesday that Doorman and Soper were the ones holding the baseball bats when they knocked on Leon Peterson's door, and not him, as Soper testified earlier.