Tuesday, May 22, 2012
DANIEL FORTUNE TRIAL
By Betty Adams badams@centralmaine.com
Staff Writer
SKOWHEGAN -- The witness who proved so forgetful on the stand Monday was the main actor in a DVD shown to jurors Tuesday -- the fourth day of the home invasion trial of Daniel L. Fortune.
Defendent Daniel Fortune listens to testimony during his trial this week in Somerset County Superior Court in Skowhegan.
Staff photo by David Leaming
In the video, Fortune's co-defendant, his foster brother Leo R. Hylton, led police on a walk-through of the Guerrette family's Pittston home and showed police how he hacked with his machete at the father and daughter who interrupted the robbery attempt.
Police taped the walk-through with Hylton in custody two days after the home invasion.
Fortune, 22, is charged with more than a dozen crimes -- including aggravated attempted murder -- related to the May 27, 2008, home invasion and a Nov. 17, 2007, theft of a safe from the Guerrette home that contained more than $100,000 in cash and other valuables.
Hylton, 20, previously pleaded guilty to charges related to the home invasion and is serving an initial 50-year period of imprisonment. On Monday, he told jurors he could recall little of what he and Fortune did around the time of the home invasion.
The DVD showed the 6-foot-6 Hylton leading police in through the garage to the kitchen.
At one point, the video shows him peering through a door pane to make sure the kitchen was empty.
The chains on Hylton's ankles clang on the wooden and tile floor.
He tells police an intruder alarm went off loudly when he opened the door, and he turned to look at Fortune who was behind him.
"I don't know if he said, 'Let's go' or 'Go,'" Hylton says on the DVD. "I don't know what came over me, but I went in."
He says he saw William Guerrette Jr. with a silver gun in his hand and thought about turning around and leaving.
"But I didn't feel like getting shot," Hylton says. He said he initially hit Guerrette in the neck with the machete.
"He stumbled back and I just kept swinging. He was in complete, total shock. I just kept swinging. I can't remember if he fell or not," Hylton says on the DVD.
At one point, Hylton says Guerrette fell and began to crawl back toward the master bedroom. Hylton said he could see the gun's red laser sight.
"He kept aiming at me, so that's why he had so many slices on his arms," Hylton says.
On the video, Hylton tells police he struck Guerrette probably 15 times.
Guerrette spent weeks the hospital, and lost a finger. He and his daughter also suffered brain injuries.
Hylton also said he scaled the stairs rapidly to reach Nicole, then 10, who had come out of her bedroom and seen him. He said they couldn't leave witnesses, so he struck the girl about five times with the machete.
On the DVD, he says Fortune spent all his time at the back of the kitchen until they fled down the stairs to the basement.
The DVD contrasted sharply with Hylton's testimony Monday, in which he spent almost four hours on on the witness stand frequently saying, "I do not recall," in replies to a prosecutor's questions aboiut the incident.
Hylton did not appear in the courtroom Tuesday in Somerset County Superior Court. Instead, the trial's fourth day opened with a court reporter reading his words aloud from the transcript of his Feb. 26 sentencing hearing in the case.
The transcript shows putting the blame on Fortune and apologizing for his role in the home invasion, saying he should have stopped Fortune, the man he viewed as his older brother.
He said he could have done nothing to save the father, William Guerrette Jr., then 48, and that he failed to save Nicole.
Fortune and Hylton were sharing an Augusta apartment on May 27, 2008, when the Guerrette home was entered.
In testimony Tuesday morning, Maine State Police Detective Jason Richards said he had questioned Fortune and Hylton several times, starting a couple of hours after the predawn home invasion.
He testified that, initially, both men denied being anywhere outside their apartment after midnight the previous day.
Their stories changed gradually, he said.
At one point, Richards testified that Hylton told him, "Dan's not related to me in any way shape or form, but we're closer than blood."
Hylton pleaded guilty then tried to retract his plea prior to sentencing, when he accused Fortune of being the one swinging the machete.
Other witnesses Tuesday included a resident of Nelson Road who found clothing the prosecutor said was discarded by Fortune and Hylton after the crime; and an inmate who shared a cellblock with Fortune in the fall of 2009.
The trial is to resume at 9 a.m. today.
Betty Adams -- 621-5631
badams@centralmaine.com
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