Sacto 9-1-1

From Andy Furillo:

Accused murderer Daniel Alan Russell took the witness stand in his own defense today and tried to throw responsibility for the beating death of a 90-year-old woman three years ago onto his half-brother.

Russell, 19, testified that he lent the shoes that criminalists have linked to the murder scene to Steven Bedal, a half-brother of the defendant. According to court documents, Bedal told police shortly after the April 15, 2006, homicide of Marie Oliver on Ellen Street in North Sacramento that Russell and his co-defendant, Calvin Eugene Pearson, also 19, told him the day of the killing that they planned to rob the woman. Russell and Pearson have separate juries.

In his Sacramento Superior Court testimony today, Russell said Bedal had been living at times "on the street" and that he "wasn't doing financially well" when he approached him the day Oliver was killed on the Saturday before Easter.

"He asked me for some clothes," Russell testified.

Russell said he lent Bedal a sweater, some blue jeans, and a pair of basketball shoes. Criminalists said they lifted treads similar to those shoes from the crime scene, and that they also found the victim's blood on the same footwear.

Bedal gave the clothing back to him "before dawn on Sunday."

Bedal has not testified in the case.

Prosecutors say Russell and Pearson beat Oliver to death during the course of a robbery and burglary of the woman's home. Besides the forensic evidence, Deputy District Attorney Kevin Greene also presented videotape to Pearson's jury where the two defendants described to investigators how they killed Oliver.

Russell's jury did not hear the statements, but did view a portion of the videotape where Russell and Pearson discussed what the consequences might be for the crime. Russell told Pearson in that portion of the tape, "We should have been smarter about it."

Russell testified today that he and a person he did not identify went to Oliver's house the Tuesday before the homicide with the intent to burglarize it. He said that the two of them left after they couldn't get inside the residence. He said they decided that "for us to do this was not the right thing, and it felt bad, so we left."

He told the two juries that he met Oliver the previous year and cut her grass about four or five times. His face reddened and he sniffled slightly on the stand when Russell testified that on the days he and a friend worked in her yard, "Miss Oliver offered me and my friend something to drink, and she allowed me to use the restroom."

"She was nice," Russell said.