NEOSHO, Mo. -- Timothy Morrison recalled in court Monday the shock of finding the slain body of his friend Nolan Karch inside Karch's home near Aurora.
Karch's son, Clay, had called him from Texas on Jan. 2, 2017, asking if he'd check on his 82-year-old father, something Morrison did fairly regularly as his neighbor and friend. Clay Karch had not been able to reach his dad by phone and was worried.
The older man's dog was in his dining room when Morrison got there. The TV was on.
He found Nolan lying on the floor of his bedroom. Naked, without a pulse, not breathing. He recalled lifting a leg to see if rigor mortis had set in.
Then he backed out of what he sensed was a crime scene and called his girlfriend and asked her to call the sheriff's office and come get the little girl who was with him. He said he never noticed if there were any signs of a break-in. He hadn't actually paid any attention to that or what might be missing from the home, he said.
"He was a pretty good friend of mine," Morison explained. "I was a little shook up."
Morrison was one of five witnesses called by the state on the opening day of testimony in the trial of Shannon W. Hensley, 46, of Aurora. Hensley faces charges of first-degree murder, robbery, burglary and armed criminal action at the trial moved to Newton County on a change of venue from Lawrence County.
Ten women and four men were chosen Friday and sworn in to hear the case this week in a trial expected to last about three days. Two of the panel are serving as alternates. The defendant has waived jury sentencing if he is convicted of any offense.
Assistant Prosecutor Matt Kasper told the jury during opening statements that the state's evidence will show that Hensley entered Karch's home the night of Dec. 27, 2016, through the back door, using a key he was provided by alleged accomplice Kimberly A. Wright, 47, a woman who stayed at Karch's home in the past but had "a falling out" with him more than a year previously.
Kasper said Wright and Hensley recruited Michael Williams, 27, formerly of Aurora, to help them break into Karch's home and rip him off. Wright drove the two men to a location near Karch's residence and dropped them off. But Williams got cold feet and left, and Hensley entered the residence on his own and killed Karch, Kasper said.
"He shot him four times in the head, once in the neck and three times in the back," Kasper told jurors.
Then he pistol-whipped Karch so hard with the gun that the barrel broke off, the assistant prosecutor said.
A few days after the slaying, Williams made the mistake of going to Hensley's home and was pulled inside and beaten by the defendant, Wright and Norman L. Tunis, 35, of Verona. His assailants then took him out in the country and dumped him, Kasper said.
Kasper said the proof of Hensley's guilt lies in text messages later retrieved from his phone; the account of Williams, who saw him in possession of the slain man's El Camino; the discovery of the defendant's fingerprint on a rear view mirror of the stolen vehicle; and the recovery of other items stolen from Karch's home when Aurora-Marionville police stopped a camper that Hensley was driving on Jan. 4, 2017.
"Shannon doesn't understand how he wound up here," Charles Oppelt, the attorney representing Hensley, told jurors in his opening statement.
He said his client moved to Missouri from Las Vegas several years ago. But his wife's death in 2016 sent Hensley into "a tailspin" and involvement with disreputable people such as Wright, who got him charged with murder.
It was Wright who came up with the plan to rob Karch, Oppelt said. Hensley went along with it. But when Williams backed out, so did he, Oppelt told jurors. He said investigators found no evidence that Hensley was ever inside Karch's home.
"Shannon left, too," Oppelt said. "Shannon went back to his place."
He thought the whole plan had fallen through. It was only later when Wright brought Hensley a West Coast Chopper bicycle taken from Karch's place that he began to realize that something must have happened after he left.
Oppelt said it was Wright who hit Williams with a hatchet, and that she and Tunis urged Hensley to kill Williams. Wright is charged with second-degree murder and robbery in Karch's death, and assault, kidnapping, robbery and armed criminal action in the attack on Williams. Tunis faces the same charges in the assault of Williams but is not believed to have played any role in the robbery and slaying of Karch.
"We're not saying Shannon made great decisions," Oppelt told jurors. "But he didn't kill Michael Williams and he didn't kill Nolan Karch."
The prosecution presented numerous crime scene photos and entered into evidence several items either found in the victim's home or purportedly stolen from the victim and later found in the defendant's possession.
Clay Karch told the court that the West Coast Chopper bicycle was something his father had acquired to give to his grandson. Lt. Chris Berry of the Lawrence County Sheriff's Department testified that the bicycle was found attached to the back of the camper Hensley was driving when he was stopped and arrested in Aurora several days after the slaying.
A bloody cane found on the bed of the victim and a similar cane recovered from the defendant's camper were identified by both the son and Morrison as items the victim had crafted himself, both of which sheathed hidden daggers. The broad head of the bloody cane on the bed matched a star-shaped wound investigators found on the arm of the victim.
Bull rider
Clay Karch testified Monday that his father, Nolan Karch, moved to Aurora from Texas many years ago to take care of his mother. His father was a cowboy and professional bull rider who owned a roofing business in Colorado at one time.
He had been in declining health in the months leading up to his slaying, suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, loss of mobility in one of his arms and feeling in a hand. The son said family members were trying to get him moved to Texas to live with them.