Jurors return verdict in murder trial of man accused of killing Tacoma taxi driver
Eddie Lamont Hogan was desperate.
He didn’t have a job. He didn’t have a stable home. And evidence suggests that in a span of 30 hours he tried to commit three robberies within six square blocks of Tacoma with the same revolver, deputy prosecutor Jesse Williams told jurors Wednesday.
During one of those robberies he killed a taxi driver, 54-year-old Robert “Big Dave” Crall.
“That sense of desperation in the defendant reached a feverish crescendo,” Williams said during closing arguments.
Jurors deliberated for part of the afternoon before they convicted Hogan of first-degree murder, second-degree murder, two counts of first-degree robbery, first-degree kidnapping, two counts of first-degree burglary, second-degree assault and first-degree unlawful gun possession.
The shooting happened early March 15, 2018, near the 5800 block of South Montgomery Street.
Charging papers said Hogan claimed he fired in self-defense “when Crall grabbed him in an attempt to keep him from fleeing the cab without paying his fare.”
Crall, Williams said, had been “trying to earn an earnest day’s living.”
Something Hogan wasn’t interested in, Williams said.
“The idea that he ever intended to get a ride from Mr. Crall — nonsense,” Williams told the jury. “... He was always casing Mr. Crall to rob him.”
Video from the taxi shows Hogan was the perpetrator, he argued.
He also said Hogan was found with the gun within 19 hours of the shooting, blocks away from the scene. Hogan frequented the area, the prosecutor said.
“He confessed to committing the murder, he has the gun used in the murder — what more do you need?” Williams asked.
Days earlier, Hogan robbed a man of his cellphone outside a convenience store and burglarized a woman’s home. Then he returned to her home and fired the gun, Williams said.
Hogan confessed to police he killed Crall but denied burglarizing or robbing the others, Williams said.
Defense attorney Dino Sepe argued that the shooting that killed Crall did not happen during an attempted robbery.
He said Crall refused to give Hogan the money, Hogan went to leave, and he and Crall struggled.
“Once Mr. Crall says: ‘No, F no,’ and Mr. Hogan decides to get out, the attempt is finished,” Sepe said.
Crall was shot after he got outside the cab, “considerably after” Hogan demanded the money, Sepe argued.
“That’s felony murder in the second degree,” Sepe said. “Nothing more, nothing less.”
Sepe also questioned the credibility of witnesses in the case, and argued that ballistics is subjective.
Subjectivity can create uncertainty, “and uncertainty creates doubt,” he told the jury.
Williams told the jury on rebuttal: “The evidence can be overwhelming against you, and you can still exercise your right to go to trial.”
The evidence was overwhelming in Mr. Hogan’s case, he said.
Hogan is to be sentenced later this year.
This story was originally published November 14, 2019 at 6:30 AM.
