A guilty conscience pushed a teen-ager who was fighting a murder charge into changing his plea to guilty in the slaying of Michael Jordan's father.
Larry Martin Demery, 19, entered the surprise guilty plea Thursday and agreed to testify against co-defendant Daniel Andre Green, 20. Both were charged with first-degree murder, armed robbery and conspiracy in the death of James Jordan, 56.Demery pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and 12 larceny and robbery charges that date back to 1991. The 12 were consolidated into one for a 40-year sentence and the murder plea stands alone.
Demery will be sentenced after testifying against Green. He faces a minimum sentence of life plus 40 years, and could be sentenced to death.
Defense lawyer Hugh Rogers said he would fight to keep Demery from the death chamber. He said his client was not the person who pulled the trigger to kill the elder Jordan.
Asked if Demery had an attack of conscience, Rogers said:
"Certainly he's been remorseful about his limited role in this thing the entire time. It was his decision," Rogers said.
Demery's mother, Virginia Demery, and his girlfriend, Angela McLean, sat in the spectator's section and occasionally wiped tears. McLean and Demery have a 19-month-old daughter, Taylor.
Members of the Jordan family were not in the courtroom. If they had been, Mrs. Demery said, she would have told them she was sorry.
"My heart goes out to them," she told the Fayetteville Observer-Times. "I know what it is to lose a father. Death is never easy and I am sorry my son had anything to do with it. I am sorry that it happened."
District attorney Johnson Britt said the plea should show doubters that the case was solid from the beginning.
"We had a good case against Daniel Green. We now have his accomplice to give intimate details of what took place," Britt said.
Michael Jordan, emerging from a closed practice session in Charlotte for the NBA playoffs against the Charlotte Hornets, said "Nope, none at all," when asked if he had any reaction.
"I'm not following it at all," Michael Jordan told ESPN "SportsCenter," "the reason being that no matter what investigation I'm go through, no matter how many fingers I point, and who did it and who didn't do it, it's not going to bring him back. You know, if we solve this case of who did it, my father's not going to come back."
James Jordan was shot on July 23, 1993, as he napped in his car late in the night on the shoulder of U.S. 74, an isolated highway south of town. He had been traveling from Wilmington, where the Jordans once lived, to their home in a community near Charlotte.
Demery and Green were charged in August 1993 after a body found in a South Carolina swamp was identified as the elder Jordan.
In a police statement, Demery admitted helping dispose of Jordan's body. Demery's defense lawyers fought to keep the statement out of evidence, but lost a key battle when Weeks ruled the statement would remain in evidence.