A man accused of killing his 83-year-old uncle took the stand Wednesday to tell his side of the story: that the terminally ill man committed suicide.

"Did you shoot your Uncle Bob?" defense attorney James Siebe asked the defendant, Craig Perry.

"No, I did not," Perry answered.

The 57-year-old carpenter was tearful throughout much of his testimony, occasionally pausing to apologize and dab tears from his eyes as he described finding Robert Perry dead from a gunshot wound in the bedroom of the trailer they shared.

Story continues

advertisement

Craig Perry and his longtime girlfriend had been caring for his uncle since he was diagnosed with throat cancer a month before his death.

"What was your reaction when you found out about your uncle's illness?" Siebe asked. "Broken up," replied Perry, through tears.

He told the jury that, in the week before his death, his uncle's initially positive attitude toward fighting the illness began to wane as his condition worsened.

"He said, 'I'm screwing up your life too, aren't I?'" Craig Perry testified, voice cracking. "I said, 'Don't worry about my life, let's just get you well.'"

He testified that, although his uncle had talked about suicide, he brushed off the suggestion. He did, however, remove all of his uncle's hunting guns from the mobile home, except for the .22-caliber used in the shooting.

Perry told jurors that for a month he took leave from his job in Pocatello, Idaho, about 300 miles away, to spend time with his uncle, "talking about fishing trips, what we were going to do when he got well, playing cards."

He was playing solitaire in his uncle's room on March 29, 2001, when Robert Perry began to experience difficulty breathing and asked his nephew to prepare him a nebulizer, Craig Perry said.

As he was preparing the nebulizer in his uncle's kitchen, he heard a pop.

"What was that?" his girlfriend, Carol Flynn, asked him, according to his testimony. When he asked where it came from, she pointed to his uncle's bedroom. He was heading toward the back of the tiny trailer when he heard another pop, he said.

He said he found his uncle sitting on the edge of his bed, head drooped to the side and dangling inches above the floor.

The blood flowing from the back of his head "sounded like water running out of a faucet," as it dripped to the floor, Perry testified.

"I flipped out, started walking and pacing and yelling, 'Why did you do that?'" he said.

He testified he knelt down in front of his uncle and placed his hands on his shoulders before laying him on the floor and kissing him on the head.

"It seemed like it would be harder to lay him down on the bed," he said. "I thought I'd lay him down on his right side, because I didn't want to see the wound," he said.

Prosecution witnesses testified that the blood spatter pattern found on Craig Perry's clothing implied that he was nearby when Robert Perry was shot.

The defense has said that the blood landed on Craig Perry's pants before the shooting when his uncle coughed up blood, as he was prone to doing.

The defense is expected to rest its case Wednesday. The trial is being broadcast live on Court TV.