Lyons: Murder saga needs an ending
The legal saga of the 2001 shooting death of Raul Briseño gets more convoluted each day.
The case continued to astound Wednesday with news that getaway driver Jennifer McMullan would not get the deal she was promised to cut her 27-year sentence for agreeing to testify against alleged shooter Kenneth Smith.
To say this case has caused two different McHenry County state’s attorney administrations some embarrassment during the past seven years is like calling Gary Gauger’s wrongful murder conviction a clerical error.
One overturned conviction for Smith and a plea deal that a judge refused to accept are just some of the highlights.
If the prosecution of Kenny Smith, Jennifer McMullan and Justin Houghtaling were made into a movie, it would be a dark comedy, probably written and directed by Joel and Ethan Cohen.
But it’s not a movie, and there’s nothing funny about a father and a business owner getting shot to death by punks trying to rob his McHenry restaurant.
In March 2001, McHenry police had little to go on. Eventually, a little bird told them that a Lake County woman knew something about the crime.
When police spoke with Jennifer McMullan, they soon learned that she knew a lot more than they expected.
Police videotaped their interview with McMullan, who, in her naiveté, placed herself and her co-defendants near the scene on the night of the crime. She also said that Smith had a gun and mentioned a robbery when she dropped them off and waited for them to return.
Police got a warrant for Houghtaling, who had fled to Nebraska. Houghtaling told police that McMullan drove; that he and Smith tried to commit the robbery; that Smith shot Briseño.
Prosecutors gave Houghtaling a 20-year deal in exchange for his testimony, which he provided at McMullan’s trial.
Then he changed his mind at Smith’s trial after prosecutors prematurely granted him his sentence.
That moved prosecutors to pound Houghtaling’s square peg testimony into a legal round hole at Smith’s trial, which led to an appellate court reversing Smith’s conviction.
Faced with the prospect of trying Smith again and the ever reliable, proven liar Houghtaling, prosecutors cut a deal with McMullan, who had the longest prison term of the three.
What’s puzzling is why prosecutors now are alarmed enough based on recent conversations with McMullan that they wouldn’t even call presumably their star witness against Smith.
And why are her statements surprising them now?