PANAMA CITY — The trial of a man jailed on charges he shot his landlord on church grounds will be delayed as defense attorneys attempt to suppress a video taken the day of his arrest.
Christopher Hyler, 49, was the authorities’ prime suspect in the death of 43-year-old Robert S. Ellison after a nearly two-year-investigation from the August 2010 shooting in the construction office of First Baptist Church in Panama City Beach. Hyler was arrested in May 2013 at a property Ellison owned, and had lived in another of Ellison’s properties in the past. Police suspected other parties contributed to Ellison’s death, but no other arrests were made.
Hyler later confessed to the shooting in a police interrogation video but was coerced to do so, according to Hyler’s attorney.
--- DOCUMENT: MOTION TO SUPPRESS EVIDENCE»»
Hyler appeared in court Thursday, now with a shaved head, after filing a motion to suppress the interrogation video taken at the time of his arrest. Hyler’s legal counsel argued that after two hours of intense questioning, he simply agreed to the facts presented by interrogators.
Hyler “had used methamphetamine heavily prior to his arrest by law enforcement and was still under the influence of the drug during the interrogation,” Public Defender Henry Sims wrote in his motion to the court.
Sims said Hyler’s intoxication, coupled with a reasonable self-defense scenario presented by law enforcement to “escape” the pressure being asserted on him, amounted to coercion.
Hyler’s “statement was a result of police coercion as evidenced by the video of the interrogation process,” he said. “Therefore, admissibility is prohibited.”
Five shell casings littered the construction office’s floor at 204 Cobb Road where EMS found the lifeless body of Ellison lying face down. Rigor mortis had not set in, but blood pooled around the body from the gunshots to Ellison’s chest, abdomen and right arm.
DNA evidence collected from a cigarette butt and cellphone at the scene belonged to another man other than Hyler, according to court documents.
However, court documents indicate prosecutors will highlight Hyler’s past conviction for violent acts to link him to Ellison’s death during the trial. He previously pleaded guilty to stalking and breaking into his wife’s home after mailing a letter in 2003.
“I will get my stuff or you will pay for the rest of your life,” Hyler wrote. “I’m smarter than Bay County cops. … You’ll get it, you wait.”
--- DOCUMENT: MOTION TO SUPPRESS EVIDENCE»»
In addition, Hyler threatened the victim’s life.
“I’ll kill you,” he wrote.
Judge Brantley Clark did not rule on whether the video would be suppressed Thursday, but he did set Hyler’s trial date back a month to Jan. 12 to give attorneys more time to prepare.