Apr 1, 2009 8:26 pm US/Eastern
Jury Hears From Inmate Accused Of Ordering Hit
BALTIMORE (WJZ) ―
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A jury hears from Patrick Byers, the man accused of orchestrating the hit of a witness from prison.
Prosecutors call it a brazen case of witness intimidation. A beloved father is gunned down, and a man behind bars is accused of orchestrating the hit.
Mike Hellgren reports the jury heard from Patrick Byers Wednesday.
A taped police interview was made just before Byers was charged with the murder. He claims he didn't even know it happened until he saw the coverage on
Eyewitness News.
"He was assassinated, pure and simple. He was trying to put somebody away because he just happened to be a witness," said a member of Lackl's family.
Lackl's family watched as prosecutors played a tape of police questioning the accused mastermind behind the killing.
The stunning video shows Patrick Byers denying any involvement, even after police confronted him with evidence they found a witness list and phone numbers, dozens of them, inside his cell.
On the tape, the detective pressed Byers about how he obtained a cell phone behind bars, but Byers claims he never touched one.
The detective provided one theory saying sometimes correctional officers take their own cell phones into the jails and then remove what's called the sim car from the back.
The sim car contains the personal information and service plan for the phone. The inmate has his own sim card that he puts back in the phone and uses it until the officer comes to pick it up.
Prosecutors allege Byers used phone calls to put a hit on Lackl just days before Lackl was supposed to testify that he saw a man murdered.
"Four men conspired to murder Carl Lackl because he was a witness to a crime that had been committed in Baltimore City," said Rod Rosenstein, U.S. Attorney.
Prosecutors say the hitman tricked Lackl into coming outside his house in Baltimore County to show him a car he was selling then gunned him down.
While Byers never admitted to orchestrating the plot, in the videotape played in court he did give conflicting accounts of his relationship with his co-defendant in the case Frank Goodman.
First Byers said he didn't know him. Then he changed his story saying they'd spoken several times. In one of his last statements to a detective, he said, "How can I commit murder? I was incarcerated."
The trial is expected to continue for the next several weeks.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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