Published: February 07, 2007 11:00 pm

Cop: Crime scene was altered

By BEN FIELDS — The Independent

CATLETTSBURG — It began with a frantic call for help.

“My son’s girlfriend had a gun and she shot herself,” Linda Simpson said between sharp breaths. “Oh, Jesus Christ.”

The woman called 911 in the early morning hours of Feb. 16, 2006, to report what appeared to be a suicide in her son’s garage apartment.

Now, a year later, Timothy Scott Simpson is on trial for the murder of 28-year-old Faith Clay of Flatwoods, who was found dead from a gunshot wound on the man’s couch.

Prosecutors played a recording Wednesday morning of the 911 call, which portrayed a breathless and clearly panicked Linda Simpson reporting the incident at the apartment adjacent to her house.

When a dispatcher asked her what had happened to the gun, Linda Simpson replied, “I think my son had it.

“He got scared and he moved it,” she said on the tape.

Statements such as that had police wondering if they were looking at a suicide or a murder.

In the second day of Timothy Simpson’s trial, former Ashland Police Sgt. Forest DeLong testified that something didn’t seem right when he got to the scene of the shooting.

DeLong, now retired, was the first officer to respond to the dispatch that went out at about 5:04 a.m. on Feb. 16 of last year.

He said he met Linda and Timothy Simpson at the bottom of the staircase that led up to the garage apartment.

“(Timothy) was relatively calm,” DeLong said. “The mother was clearly very upset.”

Faith Clay’s body was found sprawled out on a couch, and the gun apparently used to shoot her was lying in a chair several feet away. Clay, who was already dead from a gunshot to her right eye, had a towel placed over her face, DeLong said.

The former officer said he didn’t ask why Timothy Simpson had covered Clay’s face, but admitted it seemed strange.

“I was bothered by the fact that the death scene had been disturbed,” DeLong said. “I thought it was suspicious, and I relayed those thoughts to my lieutenant.”

That was the last involvement DeLong had with the investigation into Clay’s death, but eight months after it happened a Boyd County grand jury indicted Timothy Simpson on one count of murder and one count of tampering with physical evidence.

Authorities believe Timothy Simpson shot Clay with the pistol and a homemade silencer comprised of a two-liter Mountain Dew bottle duct-taped to the weapon.

APD Detective Rob Brunty testified Wednesday that shards of green plastic, parts of a white plastic ring from a bottle top and duct tape were found in Timothy Simpson’s apartment.

A forensics expert from the state Medical Examiner’s Office also testified that green plastic shards were found on Clay’s body during the autopsy, and caused shrapnel-type wounds around her eye where the bullet entered.

Defense attorney Michael Curtis said in his opening statement that Clay was depressed, addicted to drugs and had made statements about killing herself in the days before her death.

On Wednesday, Curtis tried to discredit investigators on cross-examination, saying they didn’t properly document handling of evidence and other crucial aspects of the case.

Curtis has also stated he intends to prove it was possible for Clay to shoot herself in the eye, despite the fact that the gun’s length had been increased by the makeshift silencer.

The trial will continue this morning with more testimony from the forensics expert.