The following is a copy of the transcript of the defense closing argument during the 2017 preliminary hearing for murder charges against Kyle Zoellner. This provides a summary of Kyle Zoellner's defense case at the time of the hearing.
This is a written record of what was said in court and the text is exactly as it was recorded by the court reporter during the proceedings.
Transcripts and documents from the murder case, including transcripts from witness testimony, are available here.
This document has been obtained through public court records.
Mr. Brownfield: There have been so many assumptions in this case, from the very first witnesses, Paris Wright, Elijah Chandler, Jason Martinez. Everybody is assuming that Kyle stabbed Josiah. The police -- Arcata Police Department is doing an investigation with one assumption: Mr. Zoellner is the person who stabbed Josiah. DA's office gets the case, charges it, based on the assumption there would be evidence that Mr. Zoellner stabbed Josiah. We've been in this hearing for five days. There hasn't been a single bit of evidence that Mr. Zoellner ever had a knife, ever stabbed anybody.
The witnesses -- it's a party with a hundred people. Everybody is wildly inconsistent. Nobody is saying the same thing. No two stories really match. All the testimony is fractured. Some people corroborate some things that are said. Others corroborate others. And there is no general agreement as to what could've happened.
But the prosecution has given you a sequence of events that he believes shows probable cause that Kyle stabbed Josiah. That testimony -- or that assumption is based on Paris Wright. It's based on Ms. Gleaton. And leaves out the testimony of almost everyone else.
So let's look at the Paris Wright's testimony. He says he sees -- when he comes back, he sees Mr. Zoellner and Josiah. Mr. Zoellner is laying on top of Josiah, and Josiah is choking Zoellner out with one hand and hugging him with the other. Choking him so hard he's worried that Josiah's going to kill him, so he gets involved and breaks them up. He says all of this happens in the grass, never on any kind of pavement. In fact, every single witness we've heard from never -- not a single person puts Kyle on the pavement.
He says he then -- after getting the two separated, he sees Josiah's bleeding. Makes one statement to Mr. Zoellner, doesn't wait for a response, punches him twice, then goes and finds Josiah. Almost everyone else's testimony contradicts what Mr. Wright says. His own BU brother, Keaundrey Clark, who's since been kicked out of BU, probably for testifying truthfully here today -- or testifying truthfully in this hearing -- he says -- Mr. Clark says he sees Paris hit Mr. Wright, as well as a large group of people come around -- or not Mr. Wright -- hit Mr. Zoellner, as well as a large group of people come around and savagely beating Mr. Zoellner.
But even if you took Mr. Wright's testimony to be true, it cannot possibly match the physical evidence that we have. There is not a single bit of blood found in the grassy area where Mr. Wright tells you the stabbing took place. Nothing. Two officers -- multiple officers went through that entire area looking with a flashlight, looking for blood. There's nothing.
Also, Mr. Wright punches -- as he says, punches Mr. Zoellner in the face, knocks him down. Mr. Wright testified that their feet were closer to the car and that Mr. Wright is closer to the car. So when he punches Mr. Zoellner and he goes down, he doesn't see anything in his hand. Doesn't see Mr. Zoellner throw anything. Doesn't see a knife that's ten inches long?
Prosecution also says Ms. Gleaton gives them probable cause. But Ms. Gleaton says she saw Kyle on the ground being beaten, and he never got up. Not once.
What about this knife? There is absolutely no connection made to Kyle Zoellner. In fact, all the evidence shown has proven that that knife is not Mr. Zoellner's. We have a fingerprint that excluded Mr. Zoellner, fibers that did not match Mr. Zoellner's sweatshirt, and testimony from his boss that that knife has not been in his bag and that he's never seen Kyle with a knife like that. It doesn't match the brand. He's never seen it before.
This is a ten-inch knife. The DA wants you to assume that Kyle Zoellner, sober, picking up his girlfriend from a party, with keys in a hand, and his phone, walked up to that party with a ten-inch knife hidden on him somewhere. That he got into a fight — three-on-one fight and got beat up, never pulled that knife. He fell down. That knife had to be somewhere in his pocket. Most -- they must be thinking that it was in the sweatshirt. He never got injured from falling down with a ten-inch knife in his pocket?
All the witnesses indicate Mr. Zoellner is polite. He looks like he wants to leave. He looks like he is not wanting to fight. Not a single witness says that Mr. Zoellner is aggressive at all. One of the Castillo brothers, as they're walking away from the initial fight, tells his other brother that they just knocked Kyle out. They don't use those words, but just knocked the guy out. They don't know his name at that point.
Prosecution made a point of saying that Kyle didn't deny the stabbing. That's not true. He did deny it, said he didn't know anything about it.
If you look at the physical evidence, it establishes that Mr. Zoellner did not do this stabbing. The knife is clearly not his. The blood -- where the stabbing occurs -- where the police officers say the stabbing occurs, there's not a single witness who puts him in that area. Everyone puts him on the grass. Nobody puts him on the pavement.
I understand that this is a probable cause standard and that I've heard many-a-times judges say it's a lower burden of proof. But it's a burden of proof that still has some teeth, and it has to be more likely than not. And there hasn't been any evidence that showed Mr. Zoellner did this. In fact, all the evidence seems to point that somebody else did this. Somebody else's prints are on the knife. There are fibers from somebody else on the knife. The stabbing happened somewhere where Mr. Zoellner never even was. I don't know who stabbed Josiah, and I hope we're able to find out. But the Court should not hold Kyle -- the Court should follow the law and ask the prosecution to continue investigating, find out whose fingerprint that is, find out whose fibers that are, talk to all these witnesses that nobody's talked to. Then maybe we'll find the person who stabbed Josiah. And I hope we do. But it's not Mr. Zoellner. And I ask the Court not to hold Mr. Zoellner.