MORGANTOWN — An alleged eyewitness to the 2000 slaying of Teresa Childres testified Monday that Dennis Childers was the gunman, while another two men testified – one with obvious reluctance – that they were told by Childers that he killed Childres.

Dennis Childers, 44, of Morgantown is on trial in Butler County Circuit Court on charges of murder, kidnapping and tampering with evidence in the death of Childres, 35, of Morgantown.

Authorities believe Childres died Jan. 13, 2000, after being shot three times with a 20-gauge shotgun. Her body was discovered two days later partially buried under a pile of leaves off Lawson Embry Cemetery Road.

Childers was charged in connection with her death in 2007.

Monday’s proceedings in the second week of the trial centered on the testimony of David Cardwell, Ronnie Burden and Mark Hudson.

The three men over a period of years related to investigators their knowledge of Childers’ alleged actions – admissions that Childers’ attorney Gary Logsdon has called “jailhouse confessions,” because the men were all facing jail time for unrelated criminal charges when they made their claims.

Cardwell sets the scene

David Cardwell, 39, of Morgantown said Monday that he was in the back seat of a light green, four-door Buick driven by Dennis Childers and carrying Teresa Childres as a front-seat passenger on the night of her death.

Cardwell had learned the previous week that Childres had been carrying a tape recorder used in an attempt to record Dennis Childers’ conversations and to confirm for the Butler County Sheriff’s Office suspicions of drug activity involving Childers.

“She came to my house and dropped the tape recorder,” Cardwell said. “It wasn’t like she was trying to hide it.”

Cardwell passed the information about the tape recorder to Childers, whom he described as a “drinking buddy and get high buddy.” Cardwell said Childers became excited and called Childres a “rat.”

After they picked up Childres at Glendon Hunt’s house on Belmont Road, Cardwell says the three drove around, stopping on Lawson Embry Cemetery Road, where Childers parked and took a 20-gauge shotgun off the floorboard.

“He said, ‘I’m going to put this gun in the trunk’, goes out and the trunk lid is open, he goes back and says, ‘Get her,’ ” Cardwell said, describing how he hit Childres in the head with a hammer and putting his hands to his face to indicate her attempts to resist. “Dennis grabs her feet and pulls her out of the car, they go around to the back and wrestled for a while. It’s dark … I’m fearing for my life, I go to the front and that’s when the shots took place.”

Two women sitting with a group of Childres’ family hid their faces in a tissue as Cardwell told his account of the death.

The two men then dragged the body, Cardwell said, ripping Childres’ pants in the process and discovering she was wearing a tape recorder, which Cardwell said was later burned in his driveway.

Cardwell was promised immunity from prosecution in this case by Kentucky State Police Det. Scott Skaggs for his testimony, although he is currently jailed for violating probation on an unrelated charge.

The day after Childres’ death, Cardwell said he, his then-girlfriend Donna Keeton, Childers and his then-girlfriend, Kayla Brooks, returned to the crime scene where Childers allegedly tried to hide evidence.

“He told me he found shells from another gun at a different place and was going to take them to the scene and place them on the ground,” said Cardwell, adding that he did not leave the car during the second visit to the scene.

Afterward, Cardwell, his mother, Childers and Keeton, who is now dead, went to Alabama to pick up Cardwell’s daughter and bring her back to Kentucky for the weekend, Cardwell said, noting that Childers bought a pair of shoes at an Alabama Wal-Mart and left the pair he had been wearing at the store.

Exhaustive questioning

During Cardwell’s two hours on the witness stand, his testimony was subject to exhaustive cross-examination by Logsdon, who pressed Cardwell on his reluctance for seven years to divulge his alleged involvement in the killing and hammering on gaps in Cardwell’s recollection of the events.

Cardwell testified upon questioning from Logsdon that he was questioned once by KSP Det. Tommy Smith in the days immediately following Childres’ death, then never spoke with police again about the case until Feb. 6, 2007, when, as an inmate in jail in Breckinridge County, he spoke with Skaggs, at which point that he was offered immunity by Skaggs.

Cardwell and Skaggs spoke two more times on May 16 and Aug. 9, 2007, at the Butler County Jail and again on Nov. 21, 2007, at Cardwell’s parents’ house.

“Am I safe in my reading of these statements that you never did give (police) the whole story?” Logsdon asked.

“At first, I was scared and I withheld information that would hinder me, but yes, I told them the whole story,” Cardwell responded.

Logsdon also questioned Cardwell on a number of aspects of Childres’ death – the absence of wounds on her hand even though Cardwell indicated she put them up in order to avoid being hit by a hammer, his inability to remember seeing blood outside the car at the scene immediately after the shooting or when he and Childers returned there the following day and his initial inability to recollect a plastic Dr Pepper bottle left at the scene the day after the killing until subsequent talks with police.

Logsdon also hit on a brief moment of confusion on which day of the week the events took place.

Authorities place Childres’ killing on a Thursday, and Cardwell testified to leaving Friday morning for Alabama and returning to Kentucky with his daughter that night.

“It’s to my belief that (the killing) happened on a Wednesday, we went back (to the scene) on a Thursday and on Friday we went to Alabama,” Cardwell said.

Logsdon at that point noted that phone records indicated Childers made two phone calls from Hunt’s house on Jan. 13, 2000, a Thursday.

Cardwell testified that in addition to himself, Childers, Brooks and Keeton, Hillard Woodcock and his wife, Michelle, were the only other people with knowledge of Childres’ death before the body was discovered by police.

Cardwell said upon visiting the Woodcock residence not long after the shooting, Childers told Hillard Woodcock, who has been charged with tampering with physical evidence in the case, he fired the shots.

Woodcock and Childers continued their conversation for another 30 minutes in another room, Cardwell said, and Woodcock offered to clean Childers’ shoes after noticing stains on them and to keep at his house the 20-gauge shotgun allegedly used in the killing.

Cardwell said the gun was sold to someone named Doris Childers, though he did not see the sale take place, and he did not witness Dennis Childers’ alleged planting of the replacement shotgun shells at the scene of the crime.

Reluctant testimony

Mark Hudson of Butler County testified to being a longtime friend of Dennis Childers and of being told by Childers not long after the shooting in 2000 that he killed Teresa Childres and that the 20-gauge Mossberg shotgun allegedly used in the shooting had been buried.

Hudson mentioned Childers’ alleged admission to KSP Det. John Williams in 2004, when Hudson was in jail in Warren County and to Skaggs in 2007, when he was out on parole.

Butler County Commonwealth’s Attorney Tim Coleman had difficulty extracting this information Monday from Hudson, who had been subpoenaed to testify.

When Coleman asked about the two statements he gave to KSP investigators three years apart, Hudson often claimed not to have remembered particular pieces of information he had shared with police.

He also claimed several times that Cardwell talked with him more often about the death of Childres than Dennis Childers did.

Twice, Butler Circuit Judge Ronnie Dortch told Hudson, who had been mumbling his answers, to sit closer to the microphone at the front of the witness stand.

“You’re not too happy to have to testify, are you?” Coleman asked.

It was eventually revealed that Hudson talked with investigators on Nov. 23 and 24, 2004, while serving felony charges, having contacted the KSP with information about the alleged murder.

Not long after, investigators persuaded Hudson to wear a hidden recorder on a visit to Childers’ house in an effort to get him to admit to the killing.

Logsdon’s cross-examination focused on Hudson’s attitude toward law enforcement, getting Hudson to say that he was never comfortable at any time in front of police.

Coleman’s line of questioning focused on the 2007 interview with Skaggs, when Hudson was facing no imminent threat of jail time and had been meeting regularly with his parole officer.

Several hours after Hudson stepped down from the witness stand, Coleman played a tape of Skaggs’ 20-minute interview with Hudson that took place at Hudson’s house.

Even at that time, Hudson indicated a reluctance to testify in court to Childers’ alleged involvement.

“They’re pretty hardcore people,” Hudson said during the interview, though at the outset of the interview he did say that he heard of Childers’ alleged role as the gunman “from Dennis’ mouth.”

Skaggs attempted several times to persuade Hudson to testify in court, saying that the case may not even make it as far as a trial.

“I’ve got a confession; this confession coupled with your statement will pretty much tie up the case,” Skaggs said in the recording. “I don’t know what way you feel about it, but I feel you’ve got the opportunity to right a lot of wrongs here.”

Hudson also testified on examination from Coleman that the testimony he gave Monday in the case was the truth.

Former cellmate testifies

Ronnie Burden, the 50-year-old ex-husband of Childres’ sister, Mary Lisa Johnson, testified Monday that Childers admitted to killing Childres while they were lodged in a two-man cell in Butler County Jail about a year ago.

Burden, who was arrested along with Childers in Dennis Leonard’s Oak Road trailer in May 2000 on federal charges of manufacturing methamphetamine, was in jail last year on an unrelated drug charge when Childers allegedly confessed.

“He asked me to testify against David Cardwell,” said Burden, who remains in Butler County Jail.

Logsdon pointed out during cross-examination that although Burden allegedly was informed about Childers’ role last year, he didn’t come forward with the information until May 12, when he wrote a letter to Judge Dortch and made a motion for shock probation in his case.

“If you had just learned information about an eight-year old murder, and you’re in jail, it would seem rather logical to me that you tell someone in a position of authority,” Logsdon said.

While Burden said he knew both Childers and Childres for several years and knew they were both friends, he said that he never knew of any arguments or violence the two had with one another, according to testimony during cross-examination.

KSP forensic biologist: Childres’s DNA found on bottle recovered at the scene

Lyle Hall, forensic biologist for the KSP, testified Monday that investigators in 2007 submitted samples from Childers and Childres, as well as samples from the trunk of Childers’ car, a denim jacket and cuttings from the jacket belonging to Childers, hairs found by state police investigators on Childres’ hand and the plastic Dr Pepper bottle recovered at the scene to be tested for DNA.

Hall said bloodstains on the outside of the bottle contained DNA consistent with that of Childres, though samples taken from the cap and the mouth of the bottle indicate the DNA of an undetermined woman.

Also, the stains on the denim jacket samples did not return a positive match for Childres’ DNA and no human DNA was detected on the samples taken from the trunk of the car.

The trial resumes today.