Opinion ID: 1405904
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Ellison's Arrest and Statements.

Text: Based on Boyde's statement, the officers arrested Ellison and obtained warrants to search his house and car. Officers seized a.22-caliber revolver, two pairs of tennis shoes, and the car stereo speaker Boyde had described. The bullet fragments recovered from the victim could not be positively matched with the gun because of damage to the fragments. The tires of Ellison's mother's car were found to be consistent with tracks at the orange grove, but were not positively matched. One pair of size 13 tennis shoes was consistent with the diamond pattern footprints at the scene but could not be positively matched. The other tennis shoes were dissimilar to impressions at the scene. It was determined that Ellison wore a size 13D shoe and Boyde wore a size 9 1/2C. The flat soled shoe prints near the victim's head were made by a shoe which was in the range of size 7 to size 9. In an initial interview just after his arrest Ellison told police he had gone to bed at 10 p.m. on January 14 and said he knew nothing about the 7-Eleven robbery. In a second interview several hours later, after police had recovered the gun and some shoes from his house, Ellison continued to maintain his ignorance of the events. Officers then played portions of a tape in which Boyde stated that Ellison had shot the clerk. Ellison finally admitted he was there and said the shooting had happened just like he [Boyde] said. Ellison then gave a statement which generally paralleled Boyde's description of the incident. It differed, however, in several important details. Ellison said the clerk tried to run away once coming out of the store, a second time from the car and a third time in the orange grove. Ellison placed the clerk alone in the back seat of the car, while Boyde had said Ellison rode in the back with the clerk. Ellison said he had fired two shots, not three, but did not know where the clerk had been wounded. It was dark, and Ellison closed his eyes when firing the first shot. Ellison said he discarded the spent cartridges in the orchard and that Boyde had hidden the gun in Ellison's mother's room. The interviewing officers expressed doubt about the truthfulness of the statement because Ellison did not know enough of the details, but Ellison stuck to it. He agreed to submit to a polygraph the following day. Ellison stuck to his story during the initial portion of his interview with the polygraph operator, but later recanted. He claimed he did not kill the clerk, but that Boyde did. He said they had gone to the 7-Eleven to take the money and leave, but Boyde had shot the clerk. Ellison then gave a detailed account of how the robbery came about. He claimed it was Boyde's idea, that Boyde had asked him to bring the gun and he had done so, that Boyde had driven around and selected the store and then had Ellison drive during the robbery, that Boyde had explained afterwards that he had to kill the clerk because he was determined not to go back to prison. Ellison said he had gone into the grove to see what Boyde was doing and that he had turned the clerk over because Boyde told him to. Ellison was scared; he knew the man was dead. He said he had covered up for Boyde because he felt he bore half the responsibility because he had been present and because he knew Boyde would serve more time as a result of his prior conviction.