Kidnapping, murder trial is under way

[TexasStooge]

FORT WORTH, Texas (Star-Telegram) - She had a loving, supportive family, but the last five years of Gina Dykman's life were not easy.

In 1991, a postal truck slammed into her car, fracturing her lower right leg, which, after surgery, was 1 1/2 inches shorter than her left leg.

She was embarrassed by the distinctive limp; the pain was constant, prosecutors said Wednesday. By 1996, she had spent most of the money she had received in an insurance settlement on methamphetamine and on people she met in the drug world, they said.

At age 27, Dykman was fatally shot near a fence at the back of a Johnson County cemetery. Authorities say she was killed by a trio who believed she was going to snitch on them about their drug activity.

The capital murder trial of Daniel Shockley Miller, one of the defendants, began Wednesday morning in state District Judge Wayne Salvant's court. Miller is accused of luring Dykman to a meeting place on the pretext that her boyfriend had been in an accident, and then kidnapping and killing her.

Prosecutors Alan Levy and Camille Sparks will seek the death penalty for Miller if he is convicted.

During opening statements and through witness testimony, prosecutors offered jurors a glimpse into the life of Dykman, who left behind a son, Brandon, now 15, and loved ones who filled a section of the courtroom.

According to testimony, on July 21, 1996, Dykman returned from a lake outing to the home of Wendy Maley, a woman with whom she had been staying after separating from her second husband.

Dykman soon received a page that boyfriend Kirk Alan Cantrell had been injured, Levy said. When Dykman arrived at what she believed to be the accident site, she was met by Cantrell, Miller and Beverly Cropp, Levy said.

Levy said the trio kidnapped Dykman, bound her with duct tape and drove her to the Caddo Peak Cemetery near Joshua.

"They took her out of the car, and she was shot, once in the chest and once behind the head and that killed her," Levy said.

Later, at Miller's home, the trio told two people how they killed Dykman in a manner that Levy described as "excited and agitated."

Two days later, police found Dykman's car in east Fort Worth with the key still in the ignition and had it towed to the Fort Worth police vehicle pound, according to court testimony.

Dykman's father, Tom Griggs, a lieutenant with the Grand Prairie Fire Department, testified that he filed a missing person report and later discovered his daughter's car at the pound.

On Aug. 22, 1996, a caretaker found human remains scattered in the Johnson County cemetery. They were later identified from X-rays of her injured leg as Dykman.

In late 1996 and 1997, Levy said, witnesses began coming forward, including Jonathan Lewis, a drug buddy who said Miller told him about killing Dykman. Later, after they had a falling out, Lewis said that Miller tried to kill him, too, Levy said.

"He put him on his knees, put a gun to his head and tried to shoot him execution style," Levy said.

"After that, Jonathan Lewis went straight to the police because he was scared and told ... what he knew."

Levy said authorities placed an informant with Miller and Cropp and gleaned information implicating them in the slaying.

During his opening statement, defense attorney Wes Ball, who is working with Terry Barlow, told jurors that Miller did not kill Dykman but that by the end of the trial, they might know who did.

"You may know at the end of this case who killed Mrs. Dykman -- not Danny Miller, but some individuals he associated with," Ball said.

Ball said "this whole business" started with the "Billy Bullet drug cartel," a local group engaged in methamphetamine trafficking.

He said that word got back to Bullet that Dykman was an informant, and that led to her death.

He suggested that a knife found in the cemetery, which was crudely engraved with Miller's middle name, Shockley, had been planted there to throw detectives off the trail.

Ball said prosecutors have been cutting deals with people who are in jail, prison or have pending criminal cases, promising them leniency, favors or to dismiss their cases, for information and testimony regarding Dykman's slaying.

Inmates have figured this out and have been communicating in jail and prison and learning the facts of the case so they could get on the "deal bandwagon," Ball said.

"When it is all said and done, we submit that there will be a reasonable doubt about his involvement in the death of Gina Dykman," Ball said.

The trial in Criminal District Court No. 2 will resume this morning, with the continuation of the state's case.

[GalvestonDuck]

Later, at Miller's home, the trio told two people how they killed Dykman in a manner that Levy described as "excited and agitated."

Well, that's a confusing sentence if I ever heard one. Is he saying that the manner in which they killed Dykman was excited and agitated or the manner in which they told the story? I'm sure it's the latter, but it reads like the former.

On Aug. 22, 1996, a caretaker found human remains scattered in the Johnson County cemetery. They were later identified from X-rays of her injured leg as Dykman.

I'm sure this bugged the caretaker. To find human remains in a cemetery could mean that someone dug up the body of someone recently deceased. And for a caretaker to not find it for a month could bring his duties into question. Does he only cut the grass once a month? In DFW, TX, where it rains alot?

Based on what I've read, I'd say he's guilty of something. Even if he didn't pull the trigger, what witnesses said about them telling the story at his house makes accomplice.