PORT TOWNSEND — Michael J. Pierce is a cold-blooded killer motivated by a desire for meth — or he simply used a slain couple’s debit card to steal $300 from their bank account.
Those were the vastly different pictures painted of the 35-year-old Peninsula College automotive technology student as opposing lawyers laid out 4 ½ hours of closing arguments in his double-murder trial Wednesday.
After hearing two weeks of testimony from 44 witnesses in the proceeding presided over by Jefferson County Superior Court Judge Craddock Verser, the jury is expected to begin deliberating on Pierce’s fate at 9 a.m. today at the courthouse at 820 Jefferson St., Port Townsend.
The nine-woman, three-man panel will decide if Pierce is guilty of one or all of several charges, including in the execution-style slayings of Patrick Yarr, 60, and Janice Yarr, 57, on March 18, 2009, at their home north of Lake Leland.
In addition to two counts of first-degree premeditated murder or first-degree felony murder, Pierce also is charged with single counts of robbery, burglary, arson, theft of a firearm, unlawful possession of a firearm and theft — of the credit card.
Pierce, who occasionally worked for the Yarrs — a logging and cattle-ranching family — could faces a sentence of life in prison if he is found guilty of killing the couple.
Chris Ashcraft, county deputy prosecuting attorney, and Scott Rosekrans, county chief deputy prosecuting attorney, said that Pierce, who lives in Sequim and Quilcene, stole a long-barreled pellet gun the night of the murders from Henery’s Hardware Inc. In Port Townsend.
They said he then barged into the Yarrs’ Boulton Farm Road home at about 8 p.m. that night, took the couple’s debit 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.
“He couldn’t go to the house and expect to leave two witnesses alive,” Ashcraft said.
A forensic photographer later matched an ATM surveillance camera’s still photos with other photos of Pierce, who was caught using the debit card at 8:10 p.m. the night of the murders at U.S. Bank in Quilcene, seven miles from the Yarrs’ home, “while the fire is still burning,” Ashcraft said.
Rosekrans said that Tommy Boyd of Quilcene testified Pierce asked him to obtain meth.
County Public Defender Richard Davies said Boyd never told that to investigators.
Pierce’s attorney: No evidence
Davies countered that no DNA linked his client with the Yarrs or any murder weapon, that there was no evidence of blood, or gasoline or other fire accelerant, that linked Pierce to the murders and no evidence putting Pierce at the Yarrs’ home the night they were murdered.
He said DNA evidence did not link the Yarrs to a knife-block set that the prosecution said Pierce stole from their residence.
He also challenged the prosecution’s time-line, saying the fire took place too close to the time when Pierce was allegedly at the bank.
“The house isn’t on fire until after Mr. Pierce is at the bank machine,” he said.
The bank machine had him there at 8:10 p.m., while the fire was called in at 8:21 p.m., according to authorities.
The tearful identification of the kitchen accoutrements by the Yarrs two daughters, Michele Ham of Port Hadlock and Patty Waters of Portland, Ore., as belonging to their mother “was an emotional response not borne out by the facts,” Davies said.
The set was given to Pierce and his girlfriend, Tiffany Rondeau, as a present by Pierce’s mother, who received it from a man she was taking care of in Quilcene and which matched a set the man’s brother had on his own kitchen counter, Davies said.
“That’s why this picture is not as it first appears,” he said.
‘Guilty of stolen debit card’
“Mr. Pierce is guilty of a stolen access [debit] card,” Davies said. “The state has proven that beyond a reasonable doubt.
“But they have not proven that Mr. Pierce murdered Mr. and Mrs. Yarr, burglarized their home, robbed them at gunpoint and burned down their home to hide the evidence.”
Davies also suggested the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office was predisposed to charge Pierce with the murders once they identified him on the ATM video and did not explore other options.
One such option, Davies said, was a man Pierce described only as having the last name beginning with B. Pierce said he was with that man the night of the murders and suggested that he had shot the Yarrs.
Rosekrans said the jury should “fill in the missing pieces of this puzzle.”
He challenged the notion that the fire quickly consumed the Yarrs’ home, said a man resembling Pierce was spotted across from their home by a passing motorist 35 minutes before the fire was called in, and said Pierce stole the pellet gun to barge into the Yarrs’ residence because, as a convicted felon, Pierce could not own a firearm, which a pellet gun is not.
The four minutes it took for Pierce, caught on the store surveillance camera, to walk into the store and steal the gun proves it doesn’t take long to commit a crime, Rosekrans said.
In addition, Davies “could not explain away” how Pierce got the PIN number, Rosekrans said.
Rosekrans also brushed off Pierce’s assertions of another shooter as “self-serving” and “not credible.”
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
