Rose's mental capacity focal point of trial

Fire chief calls cause of Boardwalk Apartments fire 'undetermined' at this point

By Erick Schmidt

Wednesday, May 9, 2007

Jason Allen Rose’s history with fire and mental capacity were at the center of questioning as the Boardwalk Trial entered its seventh day on Tuesday.

Defense attorney Ron Evans focused his questioning on a series of alleged incidents of Rose playing with matches or lighters and his client’s learning impairments.

Rose is accused of starting the October 2005 Boardwalk Apartments fire, which killed residents Jose Gonzalez, Helen “Yolanda” Riddle and KU student Nicole Bingham. Rose is charged with aggravated arson, three counts of murder and seven counts of aggravated battery. The case originally went to trial in February but was declared a mistrial because of a late-surfacing witness.

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He didn’t really have anyone else to do that piece. He was pretty much alone.

-Jill Powell, a social worker at The Villages

Kimberley Smith, a Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services worker from Rose’s hometown of El Dorado, told the jury of Rose’s upbringing in as many as 10 different residences. Smith said that between the time Rose was first put into group housing in 1989 and the time he left his final group house in 2005, he was in trouble several times as a child for playing with lighters, matches and smoking cigarettes. Smith said that none of those instances involved Rose starting any fires.

Robert Kidder was Rose’s house parent at The Villages, a group housing unit for troubled children, between 2001 and 2005. Kidder said he was aware that Rose was a troubled youth, but that nothing in his past warned him from bringing Rose into the home.

“There was nothing indicating Jason was a firestarter,” Kidder said. “We saw that Jason was pretty much a child who had been taken out of his home and probably had a lower emotional age and a lower IQ and had nowhere left to go.”

Kidder described Rose as having traits of a 3-year-old at times and at others, a mentality of a 10-year old. He said Rose’s occasional temper tantrums were like that of a child.

Kidder was questioned by assistant district attorney Amy McGowen about his posts on the Lawrence Journal-World’s Web site, www.ljworld.com during Rose’s initial trial in February. A poster on one of the site’s message boards had made a post during the trial about a comment Rose had allegedly made months before the fire. That post was made under the screen name “Truth” who was Emily Robinson, the late-surfacing witness who took the stand Monday.

McGowan asked Kidder about a message he had sent to Robinson under his screenname “Thinkb4uspeak.”

“You were doing your own investigation, weren’t you?” McGowan asked.

“Yes,” Kidder said.

A series of witnesses were also brought in Tuesday and asked questions about their relationship to Robinson. Most were members or former employees of Robinson’s church where she alleged Rose to have promised a fire in the future. All of the witnesses denied hearing anything about fire from Rose while in the church’s youth group.

Jill Powell, a social worker at The Villages, told jurors she took a special interest in Rose while he was living in the house.

“He didn’t really have anyone else to do that piece,” Powell said. “He was pretty much alone.”

Evans also questioned Curt Hackshorn Tuesday. Hackshorn is a fire chief in Belton, Missouri, who specializes in fire assessment. He said there were a number of factors that made him question the prosecution’s assessment of where and how the fire began.

“There are three different causes: accidental, incendiary and undetermined,” Hackshorn said. “At this particular time I would say this fire is undetermined.”

Hackshorn investigated the fire after the Department of Alcohol, Firearms, Tobacco and Explosives had done the initial investigation. He said eyewitnesses reported everything from multiple explosions to possible drug trafficking in the building. Hackshorn said the ATF had acted inappropriately by ruling out accidental beginnings to the fire.

Assistant district attorney David Melton cross-examined Hackshorn and called into question the evidence he had to work with. He asked Hackshorn if he had less evidence to work with than the ATF.

“Oh, absolutely,” Hackshorn said.

The jury also heard from a former teacher of Jason Allen Rose, Catherine Lyman. Lyman told the jury Rose had trouble with math and written language, but that she had no behavior problems with him.

“He functioned at a level academically lower than others,” Lyman said. “I would say his development socially was also lower, in terms of maturity.”

The trial is expected to last up to two weeks and will begin again this morning at 9 a.m.

Kansan staff writer Erick R. Schmidt can be contacted at eschmidt@kansan.com.

— Edited by Stacey Couch

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