Published: February 15, 2007 09:12 pm

Simpson guilty

Click to view a slideshow of Thursday's proceedings, created by John Flavell

By BEN FIELDS — The Independent

Catlettsburg — A day short of the anniversary of her death, Faith Clay’s killer was convicted of murder.

After a nine-day trial, a Boyd County Circuit Court jury found Timothy Scott Simpson, 24, of Ashland, guilty of murder and tampering with physical evidence, while doling out the stiffest possible penalty for the crimes.

Simpson was given life in prison for the murder, and a consecutive sentence of five years for the tampering charge — also the maximum.

Clay’s family hugged prosecutors, police and investigators as the verdict was read at about 3 p.m. Thursday. Simpson’s mother and other family members broke down in tears.

Simpson himself showed little reaction.

The case was handed over to the jury at about 11:30 a.m.

The group replayed the initial 911 call made by Simpson’s mother, Linda, and reviewed two videotaped interviews Ashland police conducted with Simpson on Feb. 16 and 17 of last year before returning their decision.

The prosecution claimed Simpson fired a 9 mm pistol modified with a silencer built from a two-liter Mountain Dew bottle duct-taped to the gun at Clay while she was unconscious on a couch in his Boyd Street garage apartment.

Defense attorney Michael Curtis argued the woman took her own life.

Alternate juror Mike Baldridge said he would have pushed for a guilty verdict if he had not been eliminated by the luck of the draw just before deliberation.

“I commend (Curtis), because he presented a compelling defense, but the state offered evidence that couldn’t be ignored,” Baldridge said. “It became more and more obvious to me what happened as the trial progressed, especially after witnessing the videotaped statements.”

In the first interview, Simpson doesn’t mention anything about the homemade silencer, and appeared fairly calm, saying he was in another room listening to music when he heard the shot that ended Clay’s life.

In the second interview, conducted a day after the shooting, police confronted Simpson with the evidence of the bottles, and the man seemed to panic, telling authorities that he disposed of evidence and altered the crime scene because he feared he would be blamed.

Baldridge said there were too many discrepancies in Simpson’s story.

“It just didn’t add up,” he said.

Commonwealth’s Attorney David Justice and assistant Scott Reese presented evidence that Clay was likely unconscious, or at least heavily impaired, at the time of the shooting because of the amount of methadone and Xanax in her system, and argued she couldn’t have operated a firearm. Medical experts also testified that a suicide by gunshot to the eye is extremely rare, and could have been rendered physically impossible because of the bottle attached to the gun.

Simpson and his mother both admitted to moving the gun and throwing two-liter bottles in the trash before the police arrived at the scene.

“The second interview was probably what hurt our case the most,” Curtis said after the trial had ended. “His demeanor was completely different, and there’s no question it was damaging.”

This was the first trial for Justice and Reese as prosecutors, and Reese said it’s not going to be something he forgets anytime soon.

“I feel like what we did was important,” said the assistant, who handled a large portion of the commonwealth’s case, including a complicated chain of evidence involving more than 50 exhibits.

“I feel like Faith’s family had a voice and has been vindicated,” Reese added.

Justice said the end result was “bittersweet.”

“It is a victory for the state of Kentucky,” he said. “But it takes a little bit out of you, dealing closely with someone’s death like this.”

Justice gave most of the credit to the Ashland Police Department, giving special recognition to Sgt. Mike Crawford, the lead investigator in the case.

“Crawford did a wonderful job; he was the heart and soul of this case,” he said.

Justice argued for the maximum sentence, and said he was pleased with the jury’s decision.

“They did what they thought was right, and I think their decision speaks volumes,” he said.

Simpson’s case will automatically be appealed to the state Supreme Court, because it involves a sentence of more than 20 years.

Circuit Judge C. David Hagerman set Simpson’s final sentencing for March 16.

The man will also be arraigned this morning on a child pornography charge, stemming from files found on his computer during the homicide investigation.