Girl Felt Obliged To Testify Against Murder Suspect -- Witness To Runaway's Death Made Deal

PORT ORCHARD - The girl who testified yesterday that Roderick "Taz" Selwyn beat a teenage runaway to death acknowledged that she felt obligated to implicate Selwyn under her plea agreement with the state.

Two weeks after her arrest, the 16-year-old girl entered a plea that maintained her innocence but acknowledged she would likely be found guilty of second-degree murder. Prosecutors, in exchange for her testimony, declined to seek an adult trial.

The girl will remain at Echo Glen, a juvenile institution, until she turns 21. Conviction in adult court could have locked her away until age 29.

Also under defense questioning, the girl admitted telling differing stories about 13-year-old Jerry Wager's death to friends, detectives and attorneys - sometimes saying it was Selwyn's idea to initiate Wager into his gang by beating him, other times saying Wager asked to join Selwyn's gang.

The girl maintained that she told detectives early on that Selwyn decided to kill Wager so the badly beaten boy would not press charges that would send Selwyn back to jail.

Defense attorney Mark Yelish handed the girl her sworn statement and asked her to find where she mentioned that. Leafing through page after page, the girl let out a sigh. "I guess I did not tell you," she said.

Asked by Kitsap County deputy prosecutor Brian Moran whether she recalled what she told to whom in all of her statements - which total 87 single-spaced, typed pages - the girl said no.

Moran also asked whether the girl was given any instructions on testifying. The girl said she was told to tell the truth, no matter what the truth was.

Selwyn, 27, is charged with aggravated first-degree murder in Wager's death and could face the death penalty. Prosecutors alleged the boy died in a gang initiation that went awry.

The girl testified she, her former boyfriend, Andy Rogers, 18, Wager and Selwyn were headed to the Kitsap County Fair on Aug. 26, 1994. Instead, they stopped at nearby Fairview Junior High to continue drinking with Selwyn, whom they met that day.

Within minutes, she said, Selwyn kicked a drunken Wager in the ribs for spilling beer.

She testified that Selwyn repeatedly slammed Wager's head against a brick school wall and kicked and punched him at least 50 times. Rogers slapped, kicked and hit Wager "only" 10 to 15 times, the girl said.

Selwyn tried, to break the boy's neck but could not, she said. Rogers, who knows karate, showed him how.

Not convinced Wager was dead, Selwyn asked for a bottle to slash his throat, she said. She tossed a 40-ounce beer bottle to him. He asked, without explanation, for a paper bag, she testified. The girl crumpled a bag they used to carry beer and tossed it toward Selwyn.

Asked by Yelish why she did that, the girl responded, "because I was scared and I was doing what I was told."

The girl testified she did not know what happened to the bag.

Later, Yelish pointed out statements she had made hours after the murder, during a visit to the school on Aug. 29, 1994, and in a taped interview months later with attorneys, that the bag had been stuffed in Wager's mouth.

Rogers, who pleaded guilty to first-degree murder, accuses the girl of shoving the bag into Wager's throat.

The girl testified that she called Wager "Little Bro" because she tried to look out for him like a younger brother. But under defense questioning, she acknowledged that she did not help the dying boy before or after she left the school.

Police were nearby when she, Rogers and Selwyn briefly visited the fair after Wager's beating, and an officer was across the street when she and Rogers later visited the Punk Palace in downtown Bremerton, she said.

By the time the girl went to authorities, more than an hour had passed and she and Rogers had changed clothes, she testified.