Published: November 14, 2008 02:48 am      

Friends testify against Taylor

Huttonsville man on trial for alleged role in 2007 murder

FAIRMONT — Two old Randolph County high school friends testified Thursday against a Huttonsville man who is on trial for his alleged role in the murder of Derrick D. “Lil D” Osborne, 22.

Osborne was fatally shot three times shortly before midnight on Highland Drive in Bellview on Memorial Day 2007.

Steven H. Podolsky, 25, also of Huttonsville, told a Marion County Circuit Court jury he was the get-away driver for Lincoln S. Taylor, 24, when Taylor shot Osborne.

Taylor agreed to kill Osborne to erase a drug debt he owed to Lafayette Y. “Goldy” Jenkins Jr., 25, Podolsky claimed. He said Jenkins, the head of a drug crew in Fairmont, was their drug connection for a drug business Taylor and he had in Randolph County.

Podolsky is one of four men who were charged in Osborne’s slaying. In January, he agreed to plead guilty to lesser charges and to testify against his co-defendants, including Taylor, who chose to stand trial.

And Jessica Smith, 23, Taylor’s girlfriend at the time, testified she and Taylor argued over his close friendship with Podolsky. She knew Podolsky used drugs and she was concerned about Taylor’s drug use, she said.

Taylor, whom she said was “very devastated” about having to leave the U.S. Military Academy at West Point for academic reasons in early 2006, would not admit his drug use to her.

“He started acting more irritable . . . he would deny (it),” she said. She decided to break up with him on July 2, 2007, just two days before his arrest, “just because we were arguing so much.”

Smith said she didn’t know that Taylor had kept up a relationship with another woman, also from their high school days, that he had dated before her. Smith and Taylor lived together in Fairmont while they attended Fairmont State University in the fall of 2006 and during the spring semester of the following year.

The other woman is expected to testify for the defense that Taylor spent the night of the murder with her, Paul J. Harris, Taylor’s defense lawyer, has told the jury.

Smith said when she heard that, it was “very surprising, shocking and hurtful.” A female relative of Taylor’s told her in December 2007 about the other woman and the alibi defense, Smith said.

On cross-examination by Harris, she agreed that she had never seen Taylor use or possess drugs or “be mean or hurtful to anyone.”

Taylor’s trial continues at 9 a.m. today before Marion Chief Judge David R. Janes. The trial is expected to continue next week. It started last Monday but was suspended Tuesday for the Veterans Day holiday.

In his cross-examination of Podolsky, Harris challenged his credibility.

Harris said that because of where he said he parked the car on the night of the murder — Podolsky said he was driving Taylor’s gray Dodge Stratus — he couldn’t have seen Taylor shoot Osborne, Harris said.

Podolsky, who had already answered a similar question for Marion Prosecutor Patrick N. Wilson on direct examination, agreed. He had parked the car facing away from Osborne’s apartment in a small, graveled pulloff about 75 yards from the murder scene, he said.

As Harris challenged his claim of seeing Taylor in the rear view mirror running back to the car, Podolsky said a diagram of the murder scene that the defense lawyer was using was wrong in its depiction. The car was not parked at the angle the display shows, and the curve in the road near where the car is parked is too sharp, he said.

He had dropped off Taylor behind some shrubbery near the apartment where Osborne was living with a girlfriend, Podolsky said. Taylor was dressed in black, from a black toboggan pulled down over his face — Podolsky has said Taylor cut a baseball-sized hole in it so he could see — to a long-sleeved black shirt, black gloves and sweatpants, and a pair of cheap, black slip-on running shoes. Taylor had changed into the outfit in a parking lot at a nearby Bellview shopping center just before they drove up to Osborne’s apartment.

Podolsky said he caught a fleeting glimpse in the rear-view mirror of Taylor running back to the car as he ran under a streetlight. Podolsky said he was slouched way down behind the wheel. He saw Taylor carrying the murder weapon — a .40 caliber pistol he had gotten from Jenkins — in his right hand, he said.

About 30 seconds earlier, Podolsky said, he had heard about six gunshots to his rear, near the apartment.

Harris also pressed Podolsky about a misdemeanor charge in Randolph County for allegedly selling four junk cars that did not belong to him. The offense occurred on May 30, 2007, just two days after the murder, the defense lawyer said.

Podolsky said he told the salvage yard owner who towed the cars away that the cars in question were not on his property. He also said he gave half of the $200 he got for the vehicles to Taylor.

He and Taylor were always seeking to raise money to pay for their living expenses and particularly for their drug buys from Jenkins, Podolsky said. Taylor needed the cash then to pay a man for a dog he had bought for Smith, he said.

Although he was eventually arrested on the charges of fraudulent schemes and transferring and receiving stolen property arising from the incident, he has never been indicted on those charges, Podolsky said.

The charges were used in mid-July 2007 to bring him back to the state from New Jersey where he had gone to spend the summer with his family.

Harris asked why Fairmont city police who had first charged Podolsky with the misdemeanor offense of being an accessory after the fact suddenly changed course. Podolsky had made bail on the accessory charge. But police then charged and arrested him for conspiracy to commit murder, a felony charge.

Harris’ implication that police found he had lied about his role in the crime drew an objection from Wilson.

At issue was Podolsky’s “prior knowledge” of the events and planning behind the crime, the prosecutor said.

As police continued to interrogate him, Podolsky admitted that information, including details about his and Taylor’s drug dealings with Jenkins and with Donnell D. “Nels” Lee, 24.

Jenkins agreed to plead guilty last May to lesser charges. Lee, the fourth man charged with the crime, was convicted by a jury on Aug. 29 on murder and conspiracy charges. He is appealing his conviction.

Wilson said when he learned that Podolsky knew much more than he had first disclosed that he decided to charge Podolsky with the felony charge of conspiracy.

E-mail Bill Byrd at bbyrd@timeswv.com.