2011-10-04

Witness: 21-year-old murder case of mistaken identity

Excerpt

Amarillo police and a homicide investigator arrived at Western Lounge, 2905 E. Amarillo Blvd., in the early morning hours of July 22, 1990, to find Clarence Smith's body sprawled in the bar's parking…

Amarillo police and a homicide investigator arrived at Western Lounge, 2905 E. Amarillo Blvd., in the early morning hours of July 22, 1990, to find Clarence Smith's body sprawled in the bar's parking lot.

The frothy blood in his mouth immediately indicated to emergency responders that Smith was dead of a injury to the heart, and an autopsy later revealed a gunshot wound, the officers testified Monday.

Prosecutors brought the 21-year-old case to trial Monday with a witness who launched the jury into a detailed account of activity inside and around the bar hours before Smith's death.

Andrew Paul Jimenez, who was indicted shortly after the shooting, was in Potter County's 320th District Court on Monday charged with the homicide. Jimenez, 47, pleaded innocent to Smith's slaying - more than two decades after prosecutors dropped their initial case against him in the early 1990s.

The state's witnesses began "cratering," and the case was dismissed "because of issues," 47th District Attorney Randall Sims said in 2009.

Smith's girlfriend, Beverly Degrate, stood outside the bar with Smith when a light blue car with New Mexico license plates approached the couple, she told jurors Monday.

She saw six people in the car before the driver drew a gun and shot Smith point-blank in the chest, Degrate said.

"I had seen the hole in his chest and it was bleeding like a faucet," she said. "He told me before he fell, 'I love you and tell the kids- And all this blood came out of his mouth. He pushed me away and fell."

Kneeling on the pavement, Degrate said she was holding her boyfriend as they waited for police and paramedics.

She told the jury the shooter was confused, expecting to hit the man who earlier that night he got into an altercation with at another bar. A group of three Hispanic men were harassing a barmaid at another locale, when Smith's friend defended her, Degrate said. The friend, who later met the couple at Western Lounge, was the target, Degrate said.

She said the Hispanic men arrived at Western Lounge and repeatedly walked in the front door and out the back door.

Once that night, one of the men asked Degrate, who was playing pool across the bar from Smith, if he was her boyfriend, pointing to a table with Smith and his friend from the other bar.

"I asked which one?" she said. "He didn't answer and walked out."

A few minutes after closing time, as Degrate and Smith were walking to their car, the shooting occurred, she said.

At the police station later that night, Degrate said she identified a suspect, who police later told her was not the man other witnesses fingered and that her story did not jibe with others' accounts. She dismissed attempts by the Jimenez's attorney, Lendon E. Ray, to cast doubt on her eyewitness judgment.

"The person 21 years ago, his eyes have never changed," she said. "All I'm saying is, it's not a mistake."

Jimenez is currently serving a 30-year sentence at the William P. Clements Unit in Amarillo for a 2003 conviction for aggravated assault of a public servant with a deadly weapon in Randall County, state prison records show.

He left the Clements Unit last April on a bench warrant to Potter County, TDCJ records show.

Jury convicts man in 21-year-old murder case

BOBBY CERVANTES

A Potter County jury found Andrew Paul Jimenez, 47, guilty of murder late Tuesday in the 1990 shooting of Clarence Smith outside the Western Lounge, 2905 E. Amarillo Blvd.

The jury of seven women and five men deliberated for nearly two hours before returning a verdict.

Don Emerson, 320th District Court judge will sentence Jimenez Wednesday morning.

Jimenez’s attorney, Lendon E. Ray, did not call any witnesses during the two-day trial.

Jimenez is now serving a 30-year sentence at the William P. Clements Unit in Amarillo on a 2003 conviction for aggravated assault of a public servant with a deadly weapon in Randall County, state prison records show.

Prosecutors in the 47th District Attorney’s Office called about a dozen witnesses on Monday and Tuesday, including police officers and investigators who arrived at the scene on July 22, 1990.