Judge Keeps Out Details of Scandal in Lynwood Murder

The murder trial stemming from the slaying of Donald Morris, the husband of Lynwood Councilwoman Evelyn Wells, began Friday with the judge ruling that the jury will not hear about much of the scandal surrounding the case.

Morris, a part-time city employee, was gunned down near his home April 2, one day after a Long Beach newspaper printed his allegations that his wife was having an affair with then-City Manager Laurence H. Adams Sr.

Several days later, police arrested 31-year-old Samuel Baxter, a part-time graffiti remover for the city--but did not say why he would have killed Morris.

Although Wells and Adams denied the affair and police declared that they were not suspects in the crime, the article and death shocked Lynwood community leaders and set off a storm of speculation in the city. Wells is running for reelection and has been the subject of campaign flyers labeling her everything from an accessory to murder to an adulteress.

On Friday, Compton Superior Court Judge Donald F. Pitts ordered Deputy Dist. Atty. Frank Duarte to make no mention of the alleged affair and limit references to the newspaper article.

Such testimony would be irrelevant and would only “invite the jury to speculate . . . when nothing more than speculation is involved,” the judge said.

Duarte agreed that there was no connection between the alleged affair and the shooting but argued that there was a tie between the newspaper article and the crime. He said it prompted Baxter to see Morris but did not detail why.

In his opening statement, Duarte told the jury that his key witness will be Fred Foley, a friend of Baxter’s. The prosecutor said Foley will testify they went to Morris’ home, drank beer with him and later went to Foley’s home.

Baxter allegedly shot the councilwoman’s husband after they drove him home in Foley’s truck.

“(Foley) will tell you how (Morris) was shot in the back as he was walking away,” the prosecutor told jurors. “And how, as (Morris) is lying on the ground moaning, he heard three more shots, willful, deliberate and premeditated.

“(Foley) will tell you that that man over there did it,” Duarte said, turning to point at Baxter sitting on the other side of the courtroom.

Baxter’s attorney, Ronald Le Mieux, quickly set out to cast doubt on Foley’s credibility.

Le Mieux noted that the prosecution is offering no one else who saw the shooting and that “even Foley will tell you he didn’t see Baxter shoot. He didn’t see Baxter with a gun. He didn’t even see Morris’ body. The only things connecting Baxter to the murder are the mere words that fall from Foley’s mouth.”

He also pointed out that Foley did not report anything to police until two days later, after a police sketch of his truck was in the news.

“The burden of proof is not on me to prove Fred Foley is a liar, but I expect that is the conclusion you’ll come to,” Le Mieux said.

Wells took the witness stand, but her testimony was brief.

She did not discuss the stormy marriage that once saw Morris get a restraining order keeping her away from his home and place of work, City Hall, causing her to miss a council meeting.

The councilwoman, who was staying in a motel at the time Morris was killed, was asked only about what time she phoned home and what time she arrived at the murder scene.

She told the court she had not spoken to her husband that night but received a phone call from her daughter, Lashonda, reporting that he had “either passed out or had been shot.”

Wells wept quietly when Duarte showed her a picture of her husband’s body, which was found on the front lawn of a neighbor’s house.