by Judy Killen-originally published in the March 18th, 2016 print edition of the Yellowstone County News.
BALLANTINE — The prosecution rested its case against James D. “J.D.” Sindelar Wednesday as the trial on homicide charges progressed.
The Sindelar, 74, is charged with deliberate homicide with a weapons enhancement in the July 20, 2015 shooting death of his son, Wesley.
The trial began Monday with jury selection and opening statements. Defense attorneys may begin calling witnesses on Thursday.
On Tuesday, the jury of nine men and three women heard an audio recording of Sindelar’s interview with Troy Charbonneau, a detective with the Yellowstone County sheriff’s department.
Minutes after the recording began, Sindelar can be heard asking whether his son had died. Charbonneau says he doesn’t know, but Sindelar replies, “That’s a brain shot. He’s dead…. I killed my son, or he killed himself ripping my goddamn gun out of my hands.”
“My favorite son,” Sindelar told Charbonneau. “My only two grandchildren.”
Sindelar outlined the events leading up to his arrival at Wesley’s home, where they struggled over a handgun that fired, striking Wesley in the face. Sindelar said he arrived in the middle of an argument between Wesley and his wife, Victoria,
The whole event would never have taken place, Sindelar said, “if he just hadn’t grabbed my hand and the gun. I was ready to leave. All I wanted to do was get out of there.”
But Wesley was “right in my face” and J.D. Sindelar took a pistol from his pocket. Wesley put his hands over J.D’s hands, with J.D.’s finger on the trigger, and the gun went off.
J.D. Sindelar said he was shocked when he first entered the house because he heard screaming and the table and floor were covered with blood. He said he saw his son yelling at Victoria.
“I said, ‘Just calm down. Back off. Back off,'” J.D. Sindelar told Charbonneau.
He said nothing to Victoria, and she didn’t speak to him, because “she was in no condition to talk.”
When Wesley grabbed the gun, “It went off and it fell” as Wesley fell, Sindelar said. “I didn’t have it, I didn’t have it any more.
“That’s a brain shot,” Sindelar said. “I looked down. I knew that was a fatal shot. I got my cell phone and called 911.”
“No point in turning him over, trying to do anything,” J.D. Sindelar said.
He didn’t know why Wesley was bleeding. Earlier testimony indicated Wesley broke a plate during an argument with Victoria, cutting his thumb, a cut a forensic pathologist who did the autopsy termed minor and superficial.
“That’s the blood I have on my hand here,” Sindelar told Charbonneau. “That’s where he grabbed me.”
But prosecutors pointed out that photos of Sindelar’s hands showed only two small blood spots at the base of his fingers.
“Why are you not covered in blood?” Charbonneau asked Sindelar, adding he would expect to see a bloody handprint on his shirt if Wesley had grabbed him.
Sindelar had trouble recalling the sequence of events in detail.
“It was all so loud and it was all so fast,” he told Charbonneau.
Earlier, Sindelar’s son Eldon testified that he reacted with disbelief when his father called and said Wesley was dead.
Recalling a statement he made to Charbonneau in the aftermath of the incident, Eldon said J.D. Sindelar called and said, “I shot Wes. Wes is dead.”
Eldon said, “I assumed he was drunk,” adding he exclaimed, “What?”
Later, he clarified that he did not misunderstand his father, who had spoken clearly.
“It wasn’t incoherent,” Eldon Sindelar said. “I just didn’t want to believe that my father shot my brother.”
All the Sindelar family members are familiar with guns and use them often, including at a shooting range on the family’s Ballantine property and in competitions, several witnesses said. Eldon said his dad is a better shot than he is and J.D. Sindelar said Wesley had won shooting medals at the Big Sky State Games.
Victoria Sindelar testified Monday, saying she and Wesley had signed a court settlement that day that would help them keep their home.
After their afternoon appointment, she said she went home and Wesley went to run errands. She didn’t see him again until he came home, driving past their house about 6:30 to see his father.
When he came to their house about an hour later, she said, he was agitated. It was a contrast to his earlier mood, she said, when “he was really happy, excited… we were settling some matters that we had.”
She said she did not know what he did for the rest of the afternoon, but said he did not meet a friend as he had planned.
Victoria Sindelar said the couple argued and Wesley asked for a divorce. She said no, and after more talking they both said they loved each other and their two young children, who were playing outside. After the shooting, she said she told her children the last words she and their father spoke were of love, even though their dad was not with them any longer.
When J.D. came in the house, she said, Wesley said, “I’m done with you, Dad. Get the (expletive deleted) out of my house.”
“He said it three times,” she said, but J.D. walked further into the house instead of retreating.
J.D. pulled out his gun, and Wesley grabbed it with their hands overlapping, she said. When the gun fired, Wesley fell to the floor at her feet as she backed away toward the kitchen.
“I knew he was dead,” she said, adding she screamed “No no no no no no.” She picked up her phone and Wesley’s phone and left the house to collect her children in the yard, she said, because she was anxious to remove them from the property.
She called Wesley’s mother and stepfather, Rick and Tammy Coyle, who drove to their home and immediately attacked J.D. Sindelar, a fight she broke up because “my kids already had one grandpa who’s going to end up in jail” and she didn’t want anyone else in trouble that night.
She saw Wesley with one beer can when he came home and said she didn’t know what else he had to drink but she knew he “had something.”
Dr. Norman Thiersch, a forensic pathologist from Seattle who later performed an autopsy, said Wesley’s blood alcohol level was “significant.” Thiersch said the gunshot wound that killed Wesley was fired from “an inch or two out to several inches, probably not further than that.”
The bullet struck the left side of his nose and entered his brain, Thiersch said, “a really serious and devastating injury” that would have caused death in a few seconds or less than a minute.
Later testimony showed Wesley’s blood alcohol level measured .147 percent, higher than the state’s legal driving limit of .08 percent.
