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WILKES-BARRE — Opening statements and testimony are set to begin tomorrow in the double-homicide trial of James Edward Roche.
A panel of 12 jurors and two alternate jurors was selected Monday afternoon and released with instructions to return in the morning.
Roche, 33, faces two counts each of criminal homicide and criminal conspiracy to commit criminal homicide in connection with the April 2014 shooting deaths of Ronald “Barney” Evans and his adult son Jeffrey Evans.
Roche’s trial before Luzerne County Judge Fred A. Pierantoni III will be the second in the killings after a jury in September convicted his girlfriend and alleged co-conspirator Holly Ann Crawford of two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.
Crawford, 40, is scheduled for sentencing later this month. Her conviction carries a mandatory life sentence.
Prosecutors allege Roche shot and killed Ronald Evans, 73, and Jeffrey Evans, 43, on April 21, 2014, at the Hunlock Creek residence the father and son shared.
The couple allegedly was drinking and watching “Boondock Saints” when a character in the film reminded Roche of the elder Evans, to whom Crawford had previously provided sexual favors for money and gifts.
An enraged Roche then announced he was leaving to kill Evans, prosecutors say. Crawford allegedly agreed to go with him and suggested they kill Jeffrey Evans as well because he had killed his cat.
Crawford’s mother Moya Linde testified at Crawford’s trial to witnessing the exchange, and said Roche had threatened to kill Ronald Evans on a number of occasions. Roche allegedly was picked up by state police when wandering intoxicated in a field after a similar incident and also shot at Evans in another.
In a recorded statement to police played earlier this year at a pretrial hearing, Roche can be heard admitting to the killings.
He told police he first shot the elder Evans because the man was brandishing a weapon and proceeded into the home where he shot Jeffrey Evans out of fear he, too, was armed.
Defense attorneys tried unsuccessfully to have the statement prohibited from trial, arguing Roche was too intoxicated to understand his Miranda rights.
