FAIRMONT — Attorney Sam Harold dashed every connection Marion County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Sean Murphy tried to make to connect Dane Hull to the murder of Henry Silver on Friday.
The jury in Hull’s trial acquitted Hull of murder. However, the jury could not ignore Hull’s connection to the Pagan’s Motorcycle Club and found him guilty of conspiracy to commit a felony and guilty of use or presentation of a firearm during the commission of a felony.
Murphy and Marion County Prosecuting Attorney Jeff Freeman declined to comment on the ruling. Hull’s attorney could not be reached for comment.
Marion County Circuit Court Judge David Janes’ expert case handling kept what the prosecution expected to be a three or four day trial to two days of witness testimony.
Janes demanded attorneys settle most of their legal motions before the trial began. As a result, the trial proceeded smoothly with few interruptions. According to the clerk’s notes, the prosecution rested Thursday afternoon. Hull’s defense called two witnesses to the stand on his behalf. The state objected to a third witness for Hull. Harold countered, arguing for the witness to be questioned, but according to the clerk’s notes, “[the state] believes that doing that in the presence of the jury will be improper.” The court overruled Harold’s objection and barred the witness from testifying.
The jury entered deliberations the Friday morning and reached a verdict between in less than four hours.
While Murphy did his best to tie the circumstantial evidence together for the jury, he left openings large enough for Harold to poke massive holes in the prosecution’s narrative.
Harold expertly used his objections to remind the jury that simply because Hull was connected to the Pagan’s didn’t mean he had anything to do with Silver’s murder. At the beginning of the trial, Murphy gave an overview of who the Pagan’s are and what rituals and traditions past police investigations have revealed about the Pagans’ practices. Pagans-related evidence Murphy used in the past to bury John Wolfe’s defense, who was found guilty of orchestrating Silver’s death, failed to have the same impact in Hull’s case.
Silver was shot and killed in September 2022 at the Carolina Arbors apartments in Carolina after it was revealed he was having an affair with Wolfe’s girlfriend.
Perhaps the biggest liability for Murphy’s case was Det. Matthew Pigott’s testimony. Although Pigott’s testimony started strong and presented a clear narrative for the jury to follow on how the police investigation arrived at its accusation of Hull, Harold used digital messages between the other members of the Pagan’s implicated in the crime, lack of phone records and less than precise cell phone location data to muddy Pigott’s testimony.
Harold also revealed that a faction within the Pagan’s themselves were unhappy with Hull as a prospect, and threatened to beat him once he shed his membership in the club. Pigott acknowledged there were no records of phone calls to Hull from the primary perpetrators of the crime. Pigott even fell into a trap Harold laid for him at one point, acknowledging evidence collected nine months after the fact was not reliable.
Jury selection itself foreshadowed the outcome. When Murphy asked potential jury if they could come to a verdict on circumstantial evidence only, without direct evidence, one woman raised her hand. After going back and forth on what exactly was required from her, she made her discomfort with rendering a verdict without direct evidence clear. She did not make it onto the jury. Two days later, the sitting jury also decided whatever circumstantial evidence Murphy collected to connect the dots to Hull was not sufficient for a conviction.
One major piece of evidence that didn’t make it into Hull’s trial were letters written by fellow Pagan’s Austin Mullins to Ryan Lane. Both men are implicated in Silver’s murder. Wolfe orchestrated Silver’s death, but questions remain about which of those two men pulled the trigger. The state planned to lay the blame on Lane, however, in a series of letters Mullins wrote to Lane, Mullins took responsibility for shooting Silver.
Harold called the existence of these letters “exculpatory evidence relieving the defendant of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,” in a motion filed with the court. Harold and Murphy battled through motions over whether or not to admit the letters at trial. Murphy argued the letters are hearsay, which are inadmissible in a court of law. The problem was authentication of the letters. To authenticate, Mullins would have to testify that he wrote the letters. However, Mullins has invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself since the letters are potentially damning. Mullins is still due for trial in the case.
Murphy argued the burden of proving admissibility lies with the proponent, a burden which Murphy argued Harold hadn’t met.
“Rather, what the Court is told over and over is that the ‘Mullins letters’ are admissible because they are exculpatory,” Murphy wrote. “In no matter has anyone identified what it is about the letters that is exculpatory and clearly no one has mentioned the concept of hearsay let alone give any explanation to the Court how these quintessential hearsay statements are admissible.”
Harold fired back. In his response, he wrote the only evidence challenging the trustworthiness of the Mullins letters “are the completely false self-serving statements of the prosecutor.” Harold charged that Murphy knowingly misstated the facts of his conversation with Mullins’ attorney, Tom Dyer. Dyer told Murphy he had no first hand knowledge of any undue influence placed on Mullins to write the letters, but nonetheless made that suggestion to the Court.
Harold asked for more time to review the letters, but the Clerk’s notes state Janes pointed out, “Motion to continue is overfilled. Motion for Mullins handwriting is moot. Not convinced the letters are trustworthy.” Murphy had earlier stressed the case was already over two years old. He also pointed out falsities in the letters themselves. Janes excluded the letters.
It remains to be seen if the letters will be entered as evidence in any of the remaining trials in the case. Hull’s sentencing for the conspiracy and firearm charges is expected to take place in 60 days.