Witnesses In Blackwell Trial Recall Courthouse Shootings

EVERETT - A Seattle attorney testified yesterday that Timothy Blackwell stood just 2 feet from his wife and two other women when he shot them to death last year in a King County Courthouse hallway.

Lois Edwards recalled she was walking down the hallway with her client and another woman toward a man she later learned was Blackwell. "And then I heard - my first thought was firecrackers - and I looked up and there was a man in the process of shooting . . . I could see a gun in his hand."

Each time Blackwell fired another round at his estranged wife and her two women friends, Edwards recalled, "I could see the people sitting there and they would - as they were hit, they'd flinch."

Edwards, who was in the courthouse about 9 a.m. March 2, 1995, was the second witness to testify as Blackwell's triple-murder trial got under way.

Blackwell, 48, of Kirkland, is charged with three counts of aggravated-first-degree murder in the deaths of Susana Blackwell, 25, Phoebe Dizon, 46, and Veronica Laureta Johnson, 42. He is also charged with one count of first-degree manslaughter in the death of Susana Blackwell's 8-month-old fetus.

The trial, expected to last four to six weeks, was moved to Snohomish County Superior Court because the King County Courthouse was the scene of the shootings.

If convicted of even one count of aggravated-first-degree murder, the jury will then decide whether to sentence Blackwell to death or to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

In opening statements, King County Deputy Prosecutor Kerry Keefe described Blackwell as calm, systematic and methodical as he entered the courthouse, placed his briefcase on a bench, withdrew a semiautomatic handgun, then approached the three women and a fourth person and began firing. They were seated on a bench awaiting final arguments in the Blackwells' marriage-dissolution proceedings.

A day earlier, Keefe said, Blackwell had learned Susana Blackwell, whom he had not been with for more than a year, was pregnant with another man's child.

"Susana Blackwell received the brunt of the defendant's anger and rage," Keefe said. She "took a shot straight into the brain. She took a shot straight into her breast. Then she took two shots straight into her abdomen . . ." killing her unborn child.

In his opening statements, defense attorney Gary Nacht acknowledged there is little argument over who did the shooting:

"This is not a whodunit . . . The question here is `what happened?' The question here is `why?' "

Blackwell met his wife, a native of the Philippines, through an international matchmaking service.

Nacht described the defendant as a hardworking, middle-aged bachelor, who after a lengthy correspondence, went to the Philippines and married Susana Blackwell. After waiting nearly a year for her to join him in the United States, the couple lived together for less than two weeks before the marriage dissolved.

Over defense attorneys' objections, the jury saw the bloodstained wooden bench where the three women died. They viewed a chilling video - taken inside a nearby courtroom - that caught the sound of rapid gunfire and the image of people running toward a back room for cover.

Jurors also saw graphic photographs of the area where the slayings occurred, and watched Seattle Detective Walter Maning enter into evidence the bullet fragments, 11 bullet casings, purses and shoes left behind after the women were taken away.

Gilbert Dizon, Phoebe Dizon's husband, took the stand and told how his wife, also from the Philippines, befriended Susana Blackwell. He, his former wife and Johnson all accompanied Susana to the Kirkland Police station on Feb. 17, 1994, when Susana Blackwell filed a report of fourth-degree assault against her husband. She moved out of his apartment later that day, he testified.