PORT TOWNSEND — A single thread ran through most of the testimony on Wednesday in the double-murder trial of Michael J. Pierce: the theft of Patrick and Janice Yarrs’ debit card.
Pierce, of Quilcene and Sequim, was arrested March 28 and charged with murdering the Yarrs and setting their Boulton Farm Road home north of Lake Leland ablaze a year ago today.
Authorities say they identified Pierce in a surveillance video when he used the Yarrs’ debit card to withdraw $300 from the US Bank branch’s ATM in Quilcene.
Photos drawn from the video show a large man, covering his face with his shirt, whom authorities claim is Pierce.
Pierce’s lawyer, Jefferson County Public Defender Richard Davies, said Tuesday it only showed only a man “who seems rather large,” adding that the date stamp on the video was incorrect. Bank employees testified they were aware of the problem.
County Chief Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Scott Rosekrans and county Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Chris Ashcraft focused Wednesday on Pierce’s alleged theft of the card and the importance it held for authorities who used the surveillance camera photos as the basis for their arrest of Pierce on multiple murder charges.
The photos were presented Tuesday to the jury but were hidden from trial spectators’ view because the back of the projection screen faced the gallery.
Covered face
Obtained Wednesday by Peninsula Daily News, they show a large man covering his face with his shirt.
On March 28, the day Pierce was arrested for stealing the debit card, he was questioned by Joe Nole, chief criminal deputy and a detective with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office.
In the interview, Pierce denied using the Yarrs’ debit card but said he had used the ATM 10 days earlier — the same day they were killed and the day their debit card was used — to withdraw $100 from his mother’s account.
“Basically, I told him his being there and using their debit card at the bank machine made it look like he set the fire and killed the Yarrs,” Nole testified.
Countered Davies to Nole: “You’re really put the screws down on Mr. Pierce.”
Reading from the transcript of the interview, Davies quote Noles telling Pierce: “That’s why they took you down like they did. . . . What we have now is that you’re the person who did that because you’re the person who has that credit card.”
Responded Pierce, according to the transcript: “I’m gonna need a lawyer, because it wasn’t me. You’re wrong.”
Man seen night of fire
A witness on Wednesday also placed a man fitting his description near the home of Patrick and Janice Yarr about 30 minutes before the Lake Leland-area couple’s house was engulfed in flames.
In testimony during what’s become a fast-paced trial, Pam Roberts of Quilcene said she was driving home on U.S. Highway 101 near the Yarrs’ Boulton Farm Road home at about 7:45 p.m . the night of the murders when she passed a large man walking down the road.
“I was confronted with probably one of the biggest men I’ve ever seen,” Roberts said. “He had a remarkably broad back.”
When she drove into the left lane to pass him, “what he did was completely creepy,” she said.
“He took his black ‘hoodie’ [a hooded sweatshirt] and he grabbed it to the right side and pulled it over his face and slightly turned his head to the side like he didn’t want to see.”
Roberts described the man as Caucasian, standing between 5-feet-11-inches and 6-feet-2-inches tall, and being between 28 and 35 years old.
Pierce is about 6-feet-tall, Caucasian, heavy-set and turned 35 on Saturday.
Roberts said the person she saw may have been among homeless people known to live in derelict trailers in the area, but said her “puzzlement was with the person walking in the area and never seeing a pedestrian.”
So she called the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office when she heard the following day about the fire at the Yarrs’ house and the bodies found there, she said.
At about 8:21 the night Roberts saw the man, a fire was reported at the home of Patrick Yarr, 60, and Janice Yarr, 57, a logging and cattle ranching family with ties to Jefferson and Clallam counties.
They were found shot in the head with evidence of a gasoline-like accelerant having been poured throughout the house before their assassination-style murders.
Autopsies showed the Yarrs were shot before the fire was set, and authorities have charged Pierce, a Peninsula College student, with murder, arson, burglary and theft in connection with the crime.
Pierce has steadfastly maintained his innocence.
He claimed under questioning from Sheriff’s Detective Mark Apeland that he would reveal the murderer’s identity in exchange for immunity, which was not granted, Apeland testified Wednesday.
Second man?
Pierce said he and the man, whose last name begins with B, were at the man’s house when the man went to the Yarrs’ residence to borrow money and because Pat Yarr owed him money, Apeland said.
The man returned with a rifle believed to be the murder weapon and his clothes covered with blood, Pierce told Apeland.
Apeland said Tommy Boyd was identified as an acquaintance of Pierce’s but was eliminated as a suspect.
Boyd is listed as a witness for the prosecution.
Pierce could be sentenced to life in prison if found guilty by a nine-woman, six-man jury.
Opening arguments were presented Thursday in the trial, which was expected to last three to four weeks.
But Rosekrans said the quick and daily succession of witnesses — 10 testified Wednesday — may mean Davies can begin presenting his case as early as next Wednesday.
Testimony is scheduled to resume at 9 a.m. today at in the Superior Court courtroom of Judge Craddock Verser at the county Courthouse, 820 Jefferson St., Port Townsend.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
