黑料福利社

Randy Shea Gardner's second trial in a 2018 Gleed homicide ended with a hung jury.

A Yakima County Superior Court jury deadlocked Friday聽in the third day of its deliberations in Gardner鈥檚 trial.

Gardner, 53, was charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death of Julian Wabinga, 45, and second-degree assault and felony harassment. Prosecutors said he threatened another man, Doug Irwin, and forced him at gunpoint to help bury Wabinga in a barn on Gardner鈥檚 in-law鈥檚 property.

In a letter to the court, the presiding juror said that after five votes, the jury was split 7-5 in favor of finding Gardner guilty, and further deliberations were not going to break the impasse.

A unanimous verdict is required for a conviction. The jury deliberated for about 17 hours.

One of the jurors told the 黑料福利社 that the final votes were actually 8-4 in favor of acquittal.

"I was in the not-guilty camp, not because I believe (Gardner) was innocent, but I don't believe we were given enough evidence or the state proved the case with the evidence they gave us," said the juror, who asked that his name not be published. The Herald-Republic has verified his identity.

Specifically, the juror said that eyewitness testimony in the case did not seem credible, as he believed that the details of such a traumatic experience would stick in someone's memory more than what the witnesses said.

"If the prosecution thought they could win this, they had to have more than what we could see," the juror said.

He estimated that he and his fellow jurors looked at the video of Gardner digging up Wabinga's body in the barn about 30 times, but that was not enough to convince them that Gardner was the one who killed Wabinga.

He said a recorded jail phone call between Gardner and his father where Gardner said he saw Irwin put Wabinga in the barn grave suggested he wasn't innocent but wasn't sufficient to prove he was the killer.

The juror characterized the deliberations as professional, with the presiding juror keeping the discussions on track.

The juror said he was unaware that Gardner had been previously tried and convicted in the case until after he was released from jury duty and could read news accounts of the case.

Judge Kevin Naught declared a mistrial and thanked the jurors for their service before dismissing them.

Gardner could face a third trial. A status hearing is set for May 20, and a tentative trial date has been scheduled for June 22.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a disappointment, but I respect the jury,鈥� Deputy Yakima County Prosecuting Attorney Richard Petersen, the lead prosecutor on the case, said afterward. He referred further questions to Yakima County Prosecuting Attorney Joe Brusic, who couldn't be reached by phone Friday.

Earlier verdict overturned

Gardner was convicted on charges of first-degree murder, second-degree assault, felony harassment and first-degree unlawful possession of a firearm in the case following a 2022 trial. The latter charge stems from Gardner being ineligible to possess firearms after a 1996 aggravated assault conviction in Utah.

But that conviction was overturned two years later when a three-judge panel of the Spokane-based Division III Court of Appeals found that deputies ignored Gardner鈥檚 request to have an attorney present when he was first questioned. The appellate court overturned the original conviction and ordered a new trial.

Just before the second trial began in April, Gardner entered an Alford plea on the firearms charge, in which he maintains his innocence but concedes that prosecutors had sufficient evidence to convince a jury to find him guilty.

Had that charge gone before a jury, Gardner would have had to admit that he had a conviction that stripped him of his firearms rights or prosecutors would have shown jurors Gardner鈥檚 criminal record.

Court testimony

Irwin testified in court that sometime in the summer of 2017, Gardner got his wife鈥檚 pistol from the house and first shot Wabinga in the leg. Then, as Wabinga was on the ground in pain from a shattered thighbone, Gardner shot him execution-style in the head. Irwin said Gardner was angry when he found out that a truck he left at Wabinga鈥檚 Yakima property had been impounded.

Gardner then told Irwin to help him drag Wabinga into the barn and help bury him, or he would kill him as well, Irwin testified.

Ashley Heether, Gardner鈥檚 then-wife, testified she was in the house and saw Gardner fire the first shot. She聽then took her children into a back bedroom, fearing that Gardner would come for them next.

Gardner told a sheriff鈥檚 detective in November 2017 that there was a body in the barn, a sheriff鈥檚 interview video and a subsequent jail phone recording showed. A search by cadaver dogs failed to turn up Wabinga鈥檚 body.

Gardner's request came right after Heether filed for divorce, Petersen said in his closing argument, inferring that Gardner wanted to get ahead of the story.

Gardner again called the sheriff鈥檚 office to report the body on June 5, 2018, and proceeded to start digging up Wabinga鈥檚 body as deputies looked on.

During the trial, defense attorneys Marjorie Alumbaugh and Etoy Alford Jr. argued that there was insufficient evidence to tie Gardner to Wabinga鈥檚 killing. Among their arguments were the state鈥檚 failure to look for fingerprints or further test Heether鈥檚 firearm, which she had sold after the killing to pay for utility bills. They said no DNA samples were taken from the crime scene or there was no review of cellphone records.

During her closing argument, Alumbaugh said Irwin gave statements that were contradicted by the evidence, such as saying that Wabinga was shot in the forehead between the eyes when the medical examiner who performed autopsy said the bullet went through the side of Wabinga鈥檚 head.

Gardner remains in jail in lieu of $1 million bail, and has not been sentenced for the firearms charge.

Editor's note: This story has been updated with additional information.