Cab driver slaying suspect's trial begins

Jaycee Fuller’s motives were primal, the roots of his undoing modern, Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney Mark Lindquist told a jury Wednesday.

In the early-morning hours of March 8, 2009, Fuller was desperate for money and angry at immigrants for taking American jobs, Lindquist said during his opening statement in Fuller’s murder trial in Superior Court.

He saw in Mohamud Ahmed, a 22-year-old Somalian refugee driving a cab in Tacoma, an opportunity to make some quick cash and vent his xenophobia, Lindquist said.

Evidence gleaned from surveillance cameras, a GPS device and DNA-testing equipment will show, the prosecutor continued, that Fuller hailed Ahmed’s cab in the restaurant district along Sixth Avenue, gave the unwitting driver directions to a deserted parking lot a few miles away, then slashed Ahmed’s throat and left him to die on the cold pavement outside his still-running cab.

“This was a case of desperation and anger adding up to murder,” Lindquist said.

Prosecutors have charged Fuller, 32, with two counts of murder in Ahmed’s death. They contend he is guilty of either felony murder for killing Ahmed during a robbery or premeditated murder for planning to kill the cabbie.

Fuller – an unemployed cab driver about to be evicted at the time of the murder – has pleaded not guilty to both charges. His attorney, public defender John Chin, told jurors his client maintains his innocence.

“Nowhere did Mr. Fuller ever admit to anyone that he committed this crime,” Chin said during his opening statement.

Lindquist, backed by a computerized slideshow projected on a large screen, spent more than 25 minutes laying out his case against Fuller.

Here was a surveillance image of someone who looks like Fuller outside a Sixth Avenue restaurant not long before Ahmed picked up his last fare nearby.

Here was the route the victim’s cab took from that location to the parking lot in the 3600 block of South Lawrence where a police officer on routine patrol found Ahmed’s lifeless body splayed beside his cab. A route, coincidentally, that passed by the apartment complex where Fuller lived, Lindquist pointed out to the jury.

Here was a photo of a stocking cap found near the crime scene, the kind of cap Fuller was known to wear. Technicians at the state crime lab found Ahmed’s blood on the outside of the cap. On the inside, Lindquist said, was DNA and a hair consistent with Fuller’s.

It all adds up to Fuller being a murderer, Lindquist said.

Upon taking his turn, Chin addressed the jury for barely more than 90 seconds.

“Nowhere in that road map are they able to put Mr. Fuller in that cab,” he said. “They give you motive. Motive does not necessarily lead to homicide. This case is purely circumstantial.”

The prosecution, which includes deputy prosecutor Grant Blinn, then began calling its witnesses, including Ahmed’s uncle, who described how his nephew emigrated to Western Washington from Somalia in 2005.

The trial is expected to last for at least two weeks.

Adam Lynn: 253-597-8644

adam.lynn@thenewstribune.com

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