Car brought into courtroom in murder trial

In an unusual move to help prove a murder case, prosecutors have reassembled most of a 2000 Ford Mustang in a King County courtroom to show jurors how they believe Boeing employee Ronald Whitehead was shot to death by someone hiding in the car while he was on his way to work.

Whitehead's black sports coupe was hauled into the King County courtroom of Judge Steven Gonzalez in three bundles Wednesday night and assembled by the time defendant Jon Ogden, the dead man's 20-year-old stepson, walked into trial Thursday morning.

Whitehead, 61, was shot to death behind the wheel of the car and then pushed into the street near his home, according to court documents. Prosecutors want to show jurors how they believe the shots were fired by someone hiding in the vehicle.

Ogden is charged with first-degree murder in the slaying of Whitehead, a longtime Boeing employee. Whitehead was found shot to death in an intersection near his Des Moines home March 18, 2005. According to police, witnesses heard gunshots and then saw Whitehead's body shoved out of his Mustang before the vehicle peeled off in the early-morning hours. He was shot four times.

Ogden is one of three people charged in the case: His mother, Velma Ogden-Whitehead, 50, was sentenced last month to 22 years in prison for masterminding an elaborate murder-for-hire plot that prosecutors say enlisted her son and his friend Wilson Sayachack to kill her husband.

Sayachack, 19, is charged with first-degree murder and scheduled to go to trial Sept. 22. His first two trials on the murder charges ended in mistrials. Ogden's trial began July 24.

Expert witnesses for the state, including a State Patrol Crime Lab investigator, used the car Thursday to discuss key evidence in the case, including fingerprints, four bullet casings recovered at the scene and a Makarov handgun alleged to be the murder weapon.

The state had to seek permission from the court to bring the car in as evidence. In their pretrial memorandum, senior deputy prosecuting attorneys Craig Peterson and Carla Carlstrom argued that jurors should be able to "visualize the position of Mr. Whitehead when he was shot in the back of the head... "

Whitehead was driving to work when he was shot four times at South 188th Street and Eighth Avenue South near SeaTac, according to police.

According to police, Sayachack hid in the trunk of Whitehead's car the morning of the shooting as Whitehead headed to work. Ogden was allegedly in the passenger seat.

The car is expected to remain in the courtroom as part of testimony through early next week. About two thirds of the vehicle — including the entire rear trunk section and most of the midsection, was reassembled.

Attorneys' tables were moved to the edges of the courtroom Thursday to make room for the vehicle, which appeared dusty and smudged after several years of being held in evidence. The passenger-side door had been taken off, its jagged hinge holes exposed, so jurors could peer inside.

At the rear of the car, the license-plate frame still read: "It Ain't Yours, Don't Touch."

Natalie Singer: 206-464-2704 or nsinger@seattletimes.com