Murder trial begins for defendant, 74, already once convicted in ‘66 police officer shooting

Murder trial begins in 1966 police shooting

PHILADELPHIA — An elderly man went on trial Monday for murder in the 2007 death of a police officer who was wounded in a botched burglary more than four decades ago.

William Barnes, 74, already served 16 years in prison on an attempted murder charge for shooting police officer Walter T. Barclay on November 27, 1966.

The rookie officer was left paralyzed from the waist down and endured years of recurrent infections, bedsores and pneumonia. When Barclay died in August 2007 at age 64, a medical examiner ruled that an infection linked to the 41-year-old gunshot wounds caused his death, and Barnes was charged with murder.

Prosecutors are tasked with proving beyond a reasonable doubt that an unbroken chain of events starting from the initial gunshot wounds led to the officer’s death.

Assistant District Attorney Bridget Kirn said the thread was unmistakable, with Barclay’s body progressively weakening and his infections becoming more frequent and severe until his lifelong “slow, miserable march to death” ended in a suburban Philadelphia nursing home.

“That was the death sentence that this defendant imposed,” Kirn said. The officer was due to be married in less than a week when he was shot by Barnes, his spinal cord nearly severed. The wedding never occurred.

“This young man full of hope, full of promise,” she said. “His life took a drastic turn at the defendant’s hands.”

Defense attorney Sam Silver said a lifetime of other factors contributed to Barclay’s death and that there had been a rush to judgment in charging his client with murder.

After being paralyzed, Barclay was hurt in 1968, 1976 and 1985 car accidents and was injured after two falls out of his wheelchair in 1986 and 1987, he said.

“If there had ever been a causal chain … that chain was broken repeatedly by these incidents and many more,” Silver told the jury.

He asked how the officer’s death could be ruled a homicide without an autopsy. (Barclay’s body wasn’t autopsied until seven months after his death and after Barnes had been charged with murder.)

Silver disagreed with the prosecutor’s description of Barclay’s life as “dying day by day, moment by moment,” noting that he was married and divorced three times, earned an associates degree from a community college, drove with a specially equipped car, and had jobs after he was paralyzed.

Before the jury was seated, Judge Renee Cardwell Hughes asked Barnes if he was sure about rejecting a plea offer from prosecutors she said would have given him credit for 16 years he served in prison on the attempted murder charge.

Under that scenario, Barnes may have served only a few years behind bars in exchange for a guilty plea to third-degree murder. Hughes seemed surprised that the defendant passed on the deal and wanted to be certain he understood.

“I have decided to maintain my innocence and plead not guilty,” Barnes replied.

Barnes spent most of his adult life in prison on a variety of offenses. He was living in a halfway house and working at a supermarket at the time of his arrest.

He also was lecturing at Temple University and Eastern State Penitentiary, now a museum, about his life of crime and his desire to finally turn his life around.