Todd Rettenberger had never spent a night in jail or been interrogated by police until he was charged with murdering a motel clerk in a holdup that went sour.
His only previous experience with the law, he testified Wednesday, was a shoplifting arrest when he was 14.Rettenberger, 18, testified Wednesday in the second day of a hearing to determine if a confession he gave police over two days of questioning can be used as evidence in his upcoming capital murder and armed robbery trial.
The Bountiful man, along with Scott Johnson, also 18, is charged in the Oct. 29 holdup of the Woods Cross Motel 6 in which clerk Matthew J. Whicker was shot to death.
Rettenberger has below average intelligence, is dependent on others for guidance and operates on the emotional level of a 15-year-old, according a psychological evaluation introduced in court Monday.
The day Rettenberger was arrested, Bountiful Police detective Jeff Corbin read him his rights, including his right to an attorney, Rettenberger testified Wednesday.
He said he understood the rights "somewhat" but was unclear about how he would go about getting an attorney or how one would be appointed for him. He wanted to call his mother and ask her to get one, Rettenberger said, but police wouldn't let him make a phone call.
And when Corbin mentioned the murder charge carries the death penalty, "I was scared. I didn't want to die," Rettenberger said.
At one point during his interrogation, which stretched over two days, Rettenberger said he asked Corbin for a lawyer, or thought he was asking for one, and Corbin responded by repeating his rights.
Defense attorney Glen Cella is urging that Rettenberger's videotaped confession be suppressed, saying police used the threat of the death penalty to coerce him.
Police also denied him legal representation and continued the questioning after they should have stopped several times, Cella said.
Corbin testified that Rettenberger's comments about a lawyer were statements, not requests, made as he protested his innocence. And Rettenberger in-itiated the second day of questioning by asking Corbin and Woods Cross Police detective Bruce Timothy to talk to him in jail, Corbin said.
Timothy testified he specifically asked Rettenberger after the first session if he wanted an attorney but Rettenberger told him no, he'd rather talk to Timothy and Corbin the next day.
Timothy testified that Johnson and Rettenberger, along with several other suspect names, came up in the days after the fatal shooting. Police sent an informant wired with a tape recorder into a Salt Lake home and recorded a conversation that indicated Retten-berger wanted to buy a gun, he said.
But the potential seller deferred, saying he'd sold him one gun and didn't want to sell him another one "with a body on it," Timothy said.
The gun used in Whicker's death was thrown into a creek gully off Davis Boulevard, Rettenberger told police. A search of the area failed to find it.
In his confession, Rettenberger told police he didn't plan on killing Whicker but shot him after the clerk fought with him and tried to run to the lobby.
Cella and prosecutor Bill Maguire will submit written briefs on the suppression motion, and Judge Jon Memmott said he wants to review the videotaped statement and compare it to a written transcript, noting he's already found numerous discrepancies between the two.
Another hearing to argue the briefs may be necessary, putting a ruling on the motion well into June, Memmott noted.