— Walt Wyant’s jury deliberated for more than three hours Thursday without deciding his fate, which now includes the possibility he will be convicted of involuntary manslaughter.

The 61-year-old Wyant was overheard to say late Thursday afternoon that the waiting for the verdict was “like sitting on a razor blade.”

Judge Lawton McIntosh sent the jury home Thursday evening with plans for it to reconvene Friday at 9:30 a.m. to continue debating whether Wyant will be convicted of murder or manslaughter, or will be a free man after 18 months behind bars.

At the request of Wyant’s attorney, Scott Robinson, McIntosh allowed the jury manslaughter as an option to convicting Wyant of murder in the fatal shooting of his 70-year-old neighbor, Walt Wilbanks, on Oct. 28, 2009.

Involuntary manslaughter involves homicide where the killing is unintended.

McIntosh said the option was justified as the result of Wyant’s admission, on a videotaped interview the day of Wilbanks’ killing, that he had fired a shotgun at Wilbanks’ truck to “scare him off.” The two men had a history of antipathy and conflict.

Wilbanks was found dead in his truck, which was in a ditch on Whetstone Road in Mountain Rest about one-half mile from his home and about 500 feet from Wyant’s driveway. Wilbanks had died from a shotgun slug that had been fired through his truck door, entering under his left arm, striking both his lungs and his aorta and coming to rest under the skin under his right arm.

Witnesses on Wednesday placed Wyant near the truck and carrying a long gun close to the time investigators believe Wilbanks was shot.

The judge denied Robinson’s request to charge the jury with the option of death by accident.

Death by accident, McIntosh said, involves as a necessary element a legal act. Wyant’s shooting at Wilbanks’ truck to scare Wilbanks off was not a legal act, he said.

The proceedings Thursday opened with McIntosh reversing his earlier stance by admitting into evidence a fired 16-gauge shotgun shell taken from the garbage of Wyant’s home on the afternoon of Oct. 28, 2009, when investigators of the Oconee County Sheriff’s Office searched the house. Investigators also recovered a single-shot Iver Johnson 16-gauge shotgun.

McIntosh had previously allowed the shell to be mentioned as part of the inventory seized from Wyant’s home. But as the result of a lack of forensic evidence tying the shell directly to Wilbanks’ shooting, the judge had not allowed the shell to be admitted into evidence because he deemed it too prejudicial to the defense without the proper foundation.

In McIntosh’s judgment, prosectuors laid a proper foundation Thursday.

First in an evidentiary hearing and then with the jury present, Suzanne Cromer, a forensic scientist and firearms examiner with the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, testified that tests showed the fired shell had been fired by Iver Johnson 16-gauge shotgun taken from Wyant’s home.

The tool markings left on the gun’s breech face in manufacture left singular imprint patterns on the brass heads of ammunition fired in the gun, Cromer said, and in the case of Wyant’s shotgun those results, as well as marks left by the firing pin and shell extractor, had been conclusive.

No tests, however, could determine when the shell was fired, Cromer said.

But the pattern of crimping of the shell’s open end did indicate it had contained a slug as opposed to the loose shot load found in birdshot or buckshot shells, she said.

The deformed slug taken from Wilbanks’ body, she said, was a 16-gauge slug, based on diameter and weight.

It could not be determined if the slug had been fired from Wyant’s shotgun, however, she said under Robinson’s cross-examination.

John Roberts, also a forensic scientist with SLED, testified that gunshot residue found on the backs of Wilbanks hands indicated he had either fired a gun or been around a gun being fired near the time he died.

But similar analysis on a residue test kit done on Wyant’s hands could not be done, Roberts said, because the samples had not been gathered within the six-hour window from the time of the shooting that is called for in SLED’s forensic protocol.

Under cross examination by Robinson, Roberts said the test results on Wilbanks’ hands did not allow a determination of whether Wilbanks had fired a gun.

Robinson has hinted several times in the trial that the presence of a rifle in the back of Wilbanks’ truck might present the possibility that Wyant acted in self-defense.

Similar Posts:

• Second suspect arrested in March shooting in Oklahoma City
• Inmate charged in death of missing Jay woman
• Great-grandson sought in death of 86-year-old Belton man; two others arrested
• Jurors to begin deliberations in Caryn Kelley manslaughter trial
• 5 arrested after GPS leads police to stolen truck