PORT ORCHARD — The fourth trial of Michael J. Pierce in the 2009 murder of a Quilcene couple went to the jury Monday afternoon after full day of closing statements.
Pierce is being tried for the murders of Pat and Janice Yarr.
He was convicted in a 2010 Jefferson County trial and was serving a life sentence in prison when the state Court of Appeals overturned the verdict in 2012.
Arguments finished just before 4 p.m. Monday, at which time the jury retired to elect a foreman.
Further deliberations will begin at 9 a.m. Wednesday morning at the Kitsap County Courthouse, 167 Division St., because of the Veterans Day holiday today.
In his closing statements, defense attorney Richard Davies argued that the evidence against Pierce was all circumstantial.
“The prosecution has been unable to prove that Michael Pierce murdered the Yarrs and set fire to their house, because he wasn’t there,” Davies said.
“We don’t dispute the fact there were two murders and arson, but Michael wasn’t the guy.”
Deputy Prosecutor Chris Ashcraft disagreed saying “all the facts prove that Mr. Pierce killed the Yarrs and set fire to their house, and we have proven the case beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Each side was allowed 90 minutes.
Ashcraft began in the morning, speaking for about 50 minutes, followed by Davies whose presentation was interrupted by a lunch break.
Prosecuting Attorney Scott Rosekrans then used the remainder of the prosecution’s time to refute Davies’ argument.
The prosecution claimed that on March 18, 2009, Pierce stole a pellet gun from Henery’s Hardware Inc. in Port Townsend and went to the Yarrs’ house on Boulton Farm Road near Lake Leland.
It is alleged he then barged into the Yarrs’ home at about 8 p.m. that night, took the couple’s ATM card and obtained their PIN number at gunpoint, shot the two with Pat Yarr’s high-velocity rifle while the two lay side-by-side on their kitchen floor, doused their home with gasoline and set it ablaze to cover up the crime.
The prosecution also said he then used the ATM card to withdraw money from U.S. Bank in Quilcene.
The prosecution said that immediately after committing the murders, Pierce cleaned himself up and disposed of all the clothes he was wearing, including a jacket, socks, shoes and the gun used in the killing.
The prosecution also challenged testimony from Pierce’s mother, Ila Rettig, and former girlfriend, Tiffany Rondeau, as unreliable alibi witnesses.
Prosecutors said Pierce’s car had a missing floor mat, and he had a knife block that was recognized as belonging to the Yarrs by their daughter, evidence the prosecution said put Pierce in the house.
Davies said that Pierce could not have rid himself of considerable blood spatter so thoroughly and so quickly, and that if Pierce committed the murders, there would be physical evidence proving so.
The jury contains nine men and six women, with Judge Sally Olsen selecting three as alternates when deliberation began.
The trial was moved to Kitsap County after the mistrial in July 2013 when a juror, Laura Meyring, came forward and said that she may have seen Pierce on the night of the murder.
Meyring testified as a prosecution witness in the fourth trial.
The fourth trial used most of the same evidence as the first three, but it is only the second complete trial and the second time the defense was able to begin its case.
There were some new witnesses, including three inmates who shared a cell with Pierce in Jefferson County Jail and testified that Pierce told them he committed the murders.
“These three people all told the same story independently,” Ashcraft said.
“They didn’t get this from the newspapers, and they had never heard of the case.
“When they first met Pierce and asked him what he was in for, he said ‘I killed those two people in Quilcene.”
Davies attacked the jailhouse witnesses as “snitches,” calling their credibility into question and detailing Pierce’s words.
“What Michael actually said was ‘they think I’m a monster because they think that I killed those people in Quilcene,’ which is not the same thing,” Davies said.
Davies said that Pierce admits to shoplifting the pellet gun and using the Yarrs’ ATM card, but claims there is no concrete evidence that ties Pierce to the murders and the arson.
Rosekrans refuted this in his closing statement, saying that Pierce’s possession of the ATM card and the PIN number “puts him in the house” as the Yarrs were not in the habit of using the ATM card and it could not have been recovered from any other place.
After the jury left Monday, Rosekrans requested that Olsen build in one hour after the verdict was reached to allow the Yarrs’ family and friends, who have attended every day of all four trials, time to travel from Chimacum to Port Orchard.
Davies said he had no objection.
Olsen said she “had never been asked to do anything like this before” and that she would rule on the request Wednesday morning.
Davies appealed the initial 2010 verdict, with the appeals court ruling in 2012 that Pierce’s constitutional rights were denied after his arrest and that Rosekrans’ closing argument represented prosecutorial misconduct.
The Washington State Bar Association later said it could not find that Rosekrans had committed an ethical violation for speculating during closing arguments what the Yarrs and Pierce were thinking during the night of the murders.
The next two retrials, in Jefferson County in July 2013 and Kitsap County this past March, ended in mistrials.
The first mistrial was called because Meyring recalled seeing someone who might have been Pierce on the night of the murders, and the second was after Pierce was not given his anti-psychotic medication while he was in custody in the Kitsap County jail.
Olsen denied in September a motion from Davies to dismiss all charges primarily based on Kitsap County’s failure to provide medication.
Should a conviction occur in the current trial, the medication failure will be a grounds for appeal, Davies has said.
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Jefferson County Editor Charlie Bermant can be reached at cbermant@peninsuladailynews.com or 360-385-2335.
