Jury begins deliberations after final arguments

Chief Assistant District Attorney Alex Bass points to the defendant as he delivers his closing arguments in the murder trial of Travis McGraw Tuesday.

Photo courtesy of CBS News/48 Hours
Published: Tuesday, June 3, 2014 at 10:32 p.m.
Last Modified: Tuesday, June 3, 2014 at 10:32 p.m.

COLUMBUS - After hearing from 18 witnesses and weighing the evidence of 83 exhibits over the course of seven days, a Polk County jury on Tuesday began deliberating the fate of defendant Travis McGraw.

McGraw, 47, is accused of slaying his wife, Vanessa Mintz, on Feb. 19, 2011, in the Saluda Mountain Lodge.

According to the judge's instructions, the jury of eight men and four women has three options: It could convict McGraw of first-degree murder or second-degree murder or acquit him of the charges.

Jurors began their deliberations at 3:40 p.m. Tuesday, and most of McGraw's and Mintz's relatives declined to leave the courtroom for fear of missing a knock on the side room door that could signal a verdict.

As the clock at the back of the courtroom ticked past 5 p.m., the volume of the scattered conversations in the room ebbed and flowed with the rise and fall of anticipation.

Three taps were heard on the jury room door at 5:17 p.m. People hushed and hurried to their seats, but instead of a verdict, the jury asked for a break. Deliberations will resume at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday.

If convicted of first-degree murder, McGraw could face a sentence of life in prison without parole. Second-degree murder is punishable by nearly eight to 16 years in prison.

“Mr. McGraw sits over there shrouded by a presumption of innocence,” his defense attorney, Tony Dalton, told the jury in closing arguments Tuesday. “The state has the burden of chipping away that shroud with evidence.”

'Rush to judgment'

“It's been a long couple of weeks, hasn't it?” Dalton asked the jury as a few heads bobbed.

Closing arguments began with a plea from Dalton to give McGraw a fair trial, “weigh the evidence” and then find his client “not guilty.”

McGraw slowly nodded his head and mouthed the word “please.”

Dalton told the jurors that McGraw's future - and whether he “gets to go home to his family and participate in the lives of his children” - lies in their hands.

Dalton said that for the jury to find McGraw guilty, the group would have to ignore the defense's evidence. He reviewed the defense's case, reminding the jury of a witness who reported two mystery men in the cove that night, a latent print on a robbed cash register at the scene that didn't match the defendant or victim, and his client's explanation for the shotgun shell in the room of the murder victim.

McGraw testified that he was target practicing with his Mossberg shotgun, which the prosecution identified as the murder weapon, on land near the Asheville airport on the morning of Feb. 18, 2011. He said that he tried to pick up all of the shells he found that morning and put them in his pockets to discard. In testimony on Monday, McGraw denied killing his wife and said the spent shell found at the crime scene probably fell out of his pockets when he was changing clothes at the lodge.

The lead on the mystery men, Dalton said, was never followed up. The source of the fingerprint was never eliminated by testing any others who had access to the lodge's office, he said.

And although his client cooperated with the investigation, Dalton said, a “rush to judgment” made McGraw the key and only suspect.

Dalton reminded the jury that McGraw was an EMT, a firefighter, a police officer and was less than a month shy from retiring a 20-year veteran of the U.S. Air Force in February 2011. “Of course that all came to an end when he was arrested for this crime,” Dalton said.

“Not being a faithful husband doesn't mean you're a murderer,” he told the jury.

Saluda Mountain Lodge, perched alone, a quarter mile off of Interstate 26, Dalton said, was the “perfect place for a robbery, but in a rush to judgment, that was ignored.”

Dalton tried to combat Monday's cross-examination of his client, during which the prosecution revealed that McGraw sent a text message about a robbery at 1:47 p.m., before McGraw said he learned of the robbery in an interview with special agents at 2:39 p.m.

Dalton told the jury that McGraw couldn't remember when he heard that money was missing from the office's cash drawer, “but it was a high-emotion time.”

Dalton said his client closed the blinds, locked the office door, turned the open sign to closed and left out the employee's door, but didn't lock it when he left Mintz at the lodge around 9:40 p.m.

He argued that his client had trouble sleeping that night so he took more pain medicine, the sleep aid Ambien and chased it with a shot of Jack Daniels.

The next morning, McGraw went to breakfast with his children and got the call that Mintz had been found unresponsive at the lodge, Dalton said. McGraw's mother testified Monday that McGraw was beside himself, crying and visibly shaken, Dalton reminded the jury.

Dalton asked the jury if it sounded reasonable that someone with McGraw's experience as a police officer would be so careless as to leave a shotgun shell behind.

A slip-up

In the prosecution's closing argument, Chief Assistant District Attorney Alex Bass alleged that McGraw slipped when he left that vital clue at the crime scene.

McGraw was in law enforcement, Bass told the jury. “He knew how to stage a crime scene … but he wasn't nearly as smart as he thought he was.”

McGraw didn't know you could match up a spent shell with the shotgun it came from, Bass said. McGraw thought that a shell with pellets would be harder to trace than a single slug that has to travel through the barrel of a gun, he added.

Bass recapped the prosecution's case for the jury, spelling out the elements of the crime: means, motive and opportunity.

As a former police officer and a hunter, McGraw “had lots of guns” and ammunition, some of which were found in his truck the morning Mintz was found shot to death, Bass said. He held up the camouflage Mossberg shotgun, reminding the jury that the agent who testified he matched the spent shell to the gun had never failed a test in his career.

Bass alleged McGraw returned to the lodge that night, opened the door, eased in, saw the TV on and Mintz in bed and “he took his shotgun and killed her.”

McGraw shook his head and mouthed “no” as Bass continued.

A witness at the motel said there was a minute between two loud “whooshing sounds,” so Bass said McGraw worked to stage a robbery and probably heard Mintz groan. He “turns the TV up and gives the kill shot,” Bass said.

“Vanessa Mintz didn't have to die,” Bass said, “but the defendant thought it was in his best interest.”

Bass called the jewelry left on the counter in the room “another slip-up.”

Bass said McGraw had previously married an older woman, a wife he cheated on with a younger woman.

“That was the first step in this pattern for the defendant,” he said.

McGraw and his first wife separated, and he met Mintz, who was about six years older than he, while he was looking for a home for himself and his children, Bass told the jury.

Mintz and McGraw married and “true to form, he followed his pattern;” he met a younger woman and turned all of the attention he had once devoted to Mintz to his new girlfriend, Bass said.

McGraw goes for what he wants and doesn't worry about the consequences, Bass told the jury, reminding jurors how McGraw wanted to have Mintz's funeral on Thursday so it wouldn't interfere with his plans to run away with his girlfriend to Tybee Island, Ga., for the weekend.

Mary Beth Fisher, McGraw's girlfriend at the time of Mintz's death, testified she thought McGraw was single when they started dating. She found out he was married, Bass said, but McGraw told her it was a “sham,” just a good show for the kids and “Mary Beth (Fisher) fell for it.”

“On Thursday night, the night before Vanessa Mintz was killed,” he said, Fisher saw a “lovey-dovey" text message from McGraw's wife and was furious. She threw McGraw out, telling him to choose her or his wife and not to call her until Sunday, Bass said.

But “what would be the advantage to kill his wife?” Bass asked. “There's a $100,000 life insurance policy.”

Bass said McGraw thought he could stage the killing as a robbery and his girlfriend would feel sorry for him, he'd be free from his marriage by Sunday, and he could run off with his girlfriend a richer man.

Bass said McGraw concocted a story about going out for target practice on the day before the killing. If McGraw was shooting targets near the Asheville airport, Bass told the jury, his cellphone in his pocket never made it there.

In an effort to chip away at the defendant's excuse that the spent shell on the floor of the crime scene could have fallen from McGraw's pocket, Bass showed the jury photographs of the crime scene. Aside from the crime scene, the rooms in the employees' quarters of the lodge were “spotless,” he said.

If McGraw had dropped the shell on the floor while Mintz was changing, with it lying inches from the shoes she took off, wouldn't she have picked it up? Bass asked. Everything was neat and in its place, he said, “not ransacked like in a robbery.”

“She wouldn't have left the shotgun shell there, because it wasn't there. It didn't fall out of his pocket,” Bass whispered to the jury. “It came out of that shotgun when he killed her!”

Bass reminded the jury, “Vanessa Mintz was a pillar of the community. She was an asset to her church, her faith and her family.”

But now, Bass said, “Vanessa Mintz is dead.”

She was robbed from the chance to hold her grandkids again, to see them graduate high school and get married, he said.



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