Jury Finds NC Deer Hunter Not Guilty

Lenora Carver, Staff Writer 09.APR.10

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A jury Wednesday afternoon found 22-year-old Kyle Zachary Keith not guilty of the involuntary manslaughter of Luciano Martinez Martinez in a fatal hunting accident in December 2008.

The jury deliberated less than two hours.

The 50-year-old Martinez had been in the Turkey Pen Gap area picking Galax off the forest floor when he was shot and killed. Around 11 a.m. on Wednesday, the defense rested its case and closing arguments were presented.

“I implore you above all to keep an open mind,” said Jack Stewart, Keith’s defense attorney. “This is a case of a very tragic and sad death, an accidental death.”

Stewart said regardless of what the prosecution said, Martinez’s death was not intentional on the part of Keith, a Henderson County resident. Stewart reminded the jury that Medical Examiner Dr. Donald Johnson ruled the death an accident in his autopsy.

“Your decision…is going to affect that young man at the table there the rest of his life,” said Stewart.

Stewart said the case was not about gross negligence or pointing fingers. Keith shot at what he believed to be a deer.

Stewart also said that Martinez had been wearing a deerskin belt that was not pre-sented as evidence by the prosecution and not even mentioned.

“But when you retire to that room to consider that case, you will consider who is responsible,” said Stewart.

Stewart told the jury Martinez was the one who chose to go in the woods without wearing “hunter orange” during hunting season, who ignored a hunter’s warnings and who ignored all the deer signs he saw that day.

He told the jury to remember the type of hunter Keith was, how he readily gave over the spent shot that killed Martinez and that Keith thought he saw a deer.

Stewart asked the jury to consider the Easter holiday they most recently celebrated and how it meant “forgiveness and compassion.”

Prosecutor Doug Mundy said the trial is not about sympathy or feeling sorry for someone, but that Keith had committed involuntary manslaughter.

“What happened was a tragedy. What happened was a mistake, but it wasn’t an accident,” said Mundy. “When he took that shot, it was an intentional act.

It was an intentional act with an unintentional result.”

Mundy said involuntary manslaughter means that it was an intentional act done in a criminally negligent way and with reasonable foresight committed against the safety and rights of others.

“When you take a weapon like this that holds ammo like this and you go into the woods and intend to go hunting in a dense area… you better be sure you know what you’re looking at before firing that weapon,” Mundy said.

Mundy said Keith was an admittedly experienced and trained hunter who knew better.

“He took a choice and made a tragic mistake,” said Mundy. “He violated one of the cardinal rules, the commandments of hunting,…that you identify your target and beyond.”

Mundy said that while the victim did not have hunter or-ange on, he did not break a law. He was only trying to earn a hard day’s work picking Galax.
“[Keith] jumped the gun,” said Mundy. “He didn’t have a clear shot but took it anyway.”

Testimony

During his testimony Wednesday, Keith, a recent graduate of Western Carolina University, said he really be-lieved he shot at a deer.

Keith said he had learned to hunt with his uncle and dad as a little boy, taken hunter’s safety classes, a concealed weapon’s class, shot with the U.S. Marines at Fort Butler and participated four years in his high school’s shooting team.

“Safety is my number one priority,” said Keith.

On the day of the accident, he got up early in the morning and told his family he was going to go hunting, the last day of deer season, in the Bent Creek area.

“I made sure I put my orange vest on and my orange hat because I knew there were other hunters in the woods,” said Keith.

Keith had a .300-caliber Winchester rifle with the scope attached.

After walking over an hour in the woods to his hunting location, he said it was very busy that morning.

He called his dad, Kenneth, and said he hadn’t seen any deer and didn’t know what to do.

His dad told him a friend and co-worker, Michael Sprouse, had a better location.

After he met Sprouse and drove to the location, he said that they passed two houses and he never saw anything else.

The terrain was very steep and rough at times but showed a lot of signs of deer population, said Keith.

“Just from experience, I could tell how fresh these signs were,” he said. “We stopped a few times because I got out of breath.”

While resting, they heard a noise below them.

“It was a loud noise. You could hear the leaves moving a lot,” said Keith. “I saw with my eyes something large down there.”

At first, he said neither he nor Sprouse could see what was making the noises.
“When I finally found it, I just kept watching it to make sure,” said Keith. “What I saw was a buck making a scraping. I waited until I had an open shot where I could see. I knew it was a buck. I could tell. I could see what it was doing.”

Half way down the trail, Keith said they knew it was larger than a deer and thought it might be a bear.

As tears filled his eyes, he said he “saw a duffle bag and a sweat shirt and that’s when I saw Mr. Martinez.”

“He was just laying there,” said Keith. “I didn’t know what to do.”
Sprouse went to get help.

“I sat there and I prayed, and I cried and I prayed, and I called my dad,” Keith said.
Keith said he tried to talk to Martinez but he didn’t respond.

“If I wasn’t sure, I would have never taken the shot,” said Keith. “What I saw was the back of a deer or I would have never pulled the trigger.”
Mundy asked if it could have been Martinez bending over picking Galax.

“That’s not what I saw,” said Keith.

Father and Friend

Tears filled the eyes of Ken-neth as he testified about his conversation with his son after he shot Martinez.

“He told me that morning that he was going to go to Bent Creek to hunt,” said Kenneth, a 46-year-old mechanic for an area golf course.
After this first conversation with Keith about how busy Bent Creek was, Kenneth told Sprouse about the situation.

“[Sprouse] called Kyle and offered to help,” said Kenneth.

Sprouse, who testified after Kenneth, said he knew of an area off Turkey Pen Gap that was steep with various signs of deer population.

Sprouse said he met Keith at a Mills River gas station and Keith followed him to the location. Once at the location, Sprouse said he found his camouflage jacket and an orange hat and put it on before they walked out in the woods.

Spouse said there were no signs of hunters, hikers or any-one else in the area.

He said the area was a little “thicker” with trees and brush than he remembered. But there were signs that a deer had been scraping trees and a clear path where deer had walked through the area.

The two stopped to rest, said Sprouse, when they heard a noise.
“We heard just a little bit of rustling,” said Sprouse. “We could never see anything for a minute.”

Placing the butt of the gun on his shoulder, Sprouse tried to look through the scope but couldn’t see anything but trees and foliage.

He handed the gun back to Keith but said they could hear “something bigger than a bird or a squirrel.”
Sprouse asked for the gun back again and looked through the scope. Mundy asked if he saw something that looked like a bird, deer, bear, or squirrel when he looked through the gun scope.

“What I saw was a large object shaped like a deer,” said Sprouse.

Sprouse said he handed the gun back to Keith because he didn’t want him to “lose his shot.”

As Keith held the gun, “He said, ‘I see it, I see it. It’s a buck,’” said Sprouse. “I gave him enough room for a shot, and I said if you have a clear shot, take it.”
Sprouse said he did not see the shot since a tree was in front of him at the time.

Before they walked down the trail to see what Keith shot, Sprouse said he returned a call to his wife.

“I called her and told her Kyle shot a deer,” said Sprouse. “About half way down the trail I noticed it was darker than a deer should be.”

He asked Keith if he thought it could be a bear.

Once they were closer, Sprouse said they knew it was a human.

“We both went into a full sprint down to the body,” said Sprouse.
Sprouse said Keith was visibly upset.

“He said, ‘Oh my God, this is going to kill my mother,’” said Sprouse.

His mother subsequently passed away in December of last year after battling cancer for five years. Keith called his dad, but at first he didn’t tell his father what happened and only asked him not to have a heart attack.

“He said, ‘Daddy, something really, really bad happened,” said Kenneth, who began crying. “I saw a deer daddy, I swear I saw a deer.”
Kenneth said he drove straight to the scene.

“This isn’t like he was some kid out there shooting in the woods who had never killed a deer before,” said Kenneth, who bought his son a special hunting license when he was an infant.

“I know he wouldn’t have taken some kind of wild shot.”

According to Kenneth, his son had taken a concealed carry class, two hunting safety classes, had shot multiple guns and rifles, could shoot a bow and arrow, and belonged to a hunting club.

He said his main goal had always been to teach his son hunting and gun safety.

Stewart asked if Keith had been hunting since the shooting incident.

“He hasn’t been hunting since then,” said Kenneth. As Kenneth waited to see his son after the accident, Sprouse said he led officers to the scene of the shooting.

Sprouse said he recounted to law enforcement officials his side of the shooting incident and explained to them as they took pictures of the scene, but the area did not have the same shadowing.

“A lot of the shadows — the way the woods looked — was a lot different,” said Sprouse.

Sprouse said the lighting changed due to the movement of the sun and the shorter winter days. Stewart asked if he told investigators the accident could have been avoided if the victim had been wearing “blaze orange clothing.”

“I don’t remember, but it’s true,” said Sprouse.

Hunter Testimony

Before Martinez’s death, another hunter, Edward Lightle, saw a Hispanic man running through the woods.

He was concerned since the man had on earth-tone colors and no hunter’s orange during hunting season.

“I whistled three times, and he ran up the hill,” said Lightle. “I called OCD [Transylvania County 911-center] and asked for a deputy to come on because something didn’t appear right.”
Investigation Testimony

Harold Young, an investigator with the U.S. Forest Service, was the first witness the prosecution called to the stand. Young said the area was very dense and had steep terrain.

“The position of the body was here on the ridge line,” said Young, as he pointed to a diagram of the scene. “The visibility of that area is very, very limited.”

Young said before his interview with Keith he explained his Miranda rights, and Keith agreed to waive them.

Young said Keith explained how they looked through a scope to see what they heard moving in the trees and waited anywhere from three to five minutes before believing it was a deer. Young said Martinez’s body was 139 feet from the location where Keith took the shot.

“The body was consistent with the location that Keith and Sprouse said they shot from,” he said.

Stewart asked if there were signs posted at the Pisgah Rangers Station, where Martinez had acquired his permit to pick Galax, which informed the public they should wear orange during hunting season. Young said the signs were located throughout the visitor’s center, on the counter and at the door.