Vashon Walker’s murder retrial avoids 2015 gaffe

Prosecutors Thursday in the retrial of accused murderer Vashon Walker successfully avoided the gaffe that triggered a mistrial in the case last year.

Walker this week again is on trial in the June 17, 2014, death of girlfriend Jessica Osborne, who was shot through the head in the couple’s 4304 Forrest Road home.

During his first trial in December, prosecutors were playing a videotape of Walker’s interview with police, who asked whether he owned a gun. Walker replied that he could not have a gun legally, because he’s a convicted felon.

Jurors aren’t supposed to hear evidence of a defendant’s prior convictions, lest they prejudge the case by assuming someone who previously committed a crime likely would commit another.

Defense attorneys J. Mark Shelnutt and William Kendrick moved for a mistrial, which Judge Frank Jordan Jr. granted.

On Thursday, prosecutors showed a new jury that recorded interview, and made sure to mute the audio when Walker made that statement.

On the video, Walker tells detectives that as he and Osborne returned from running errands that day in 2014, she went inside the house while he tried to find his cellphone in the car.

He heard a noise in the house, and when he went to investigate, he found an intruder had Osborne down on the floor, a gun to her head. “You already know what it is,” Walker said the gunman told him. “Give it up.”

He said the intruder wore a gray fleece shirt, gloves and dark jeans. After ordering Walker to shut the door, the gunman shot Osborne, and Walker punched him, causing him to drop the gun, Walker said.

A struggle ensued, during which the intruder retrieved the gun and shot at Walker as Walker ran to a back room, he said. Later he peeked out and the gunman fired again before running out the back door, Walker said.

As he stepped outside, he saw a gray pickup truck speed away, Walker told detectives. Then he went back inside to check on Osborne and call police.

His account was contradicted by a neighbor who said her dog started barking furiously about 4 p.m. that day, and she looked outside and saw Walker and Osborne arguing loudly.

Later she heard a bang, like a gunshot, and saw Walker come out on the back porch, talking on a cellphone. He kicked the back door and went into the backyard for a few minutes before going back inside, she said.

In 10 to 15 minutes, the police came, and she overheard Walker yelling about a truck that had been parked on the street outside his home, she said.

“There was no truck there,” she testified.

Police maintain Walker shot Osborne, then concocted the tale of an intruder breaking through the back door to deflect the blame.

The shoe print police found on the door matched the Adidas shoes Walker was wearing the night of the shooting, a Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent testified.

Investigators found a Ruger .45-caliber pistol hidden under vegetation in the backyard, and GBI ballistics tests matched it to the bullet that killed Osborne, and to two more bullets and seven shell casings police found inside the house.

Despite his account of a violent struggle with an armed intruder, Walker had no injuries corresponding to the blows he claimed to have sustained, investigators said.

Osborne, 28, left behind three young daughters.

Closing arguments in the case are expected Friday morning in Judge Jordan’s Government Center courtroom.

This story was originally published April 21, 2016 at 5:18 PM with the headline "Vashon Walker’s murder retrial avoids 2015 gaffe."