PENSACOLA, Fla. (AP) -- The accused ringleader in the home-invasion and slayings of a Panhandle couple told a judge on Thursday he did not want to call any witnesses on his behalf.
"Your honor, the witnesses the state has called are fine with me," Patrick Gonzalez Jr. told Judge Nicholas Geeker after the judge asked if the 36-year-old former karate instructor and father of six agreed with and understood his attorneys' strategy.
Closing arguments were expected to start Thursday afternoon.
Gonzalez could face the death penalty if convicted of leading a group of masked and armed men, dressed entirely in black, into Byrd and Melanie Billing's sprawling home and orchestrating the botched plan to steal a cash-filled safe. Nine of the couple's young children were at home when their parents were killed.
The couple was known for adopting children with special needs including fetal alcohol syndrome and Down's syndrome.
Earlier Thursday, a longtime investigator for the Escambia County Sheriff's Office testified about a lengthy interview he had with Gonzalez days after the kilings. Gonzalez told him a group of used car dealers with underworld connections wanted Mr. Billings "whacked." Gonzalez said he was not part of the home invasion and he feared the men who wanted Billings killed, the investigator testified.
In other testimony, two men who were 19 and 16 during the 2009 home invasions told jurors they joined Gonzalez in the attack but that he was the triggerman. Both men face life in prison and have entered plea agreements with prosecutors in exchange for their testimony.
The men testified that they burst into the couple's living room where they found the couple and one of their children.
They said Gonzalez began demanding Billings tell him the location of a safe and then shot him in each leg when he wouldn't tell him where it was. They said Gonzalez then drug the wounded man into a bedroom where he shot him repeatedly in the head and turned the gun on his wife.
The men said Gonzalez told the group a safe in the home contained $13 million that Billings obtained by working for the Mexican mafia.
Published: Fri, Oct 29, 2010
