Theopulus Gordon could have prevented the death of Eric Robinson last September, but he didn’t.After a few hours of deliberating Thursday afternoon, an Allen Superior Court jury convicted 47-year-old Nyunt Shwe of four counts related to the April beating death of a friend.
Nyunt Shwe faces between six to 20 years in prison when he is sentenced next month on charges of aggravated battery, battery committed with a deadly weapon, reckless homicide and involuntary manslaughter, for the death of 43-year-old Aung Win.
A night of drinking with a third friend in April ended with Aung Win’s death, his head battered with a large kitchen pestle. But Nyunt Shwe’s defense attorney during his three-day trial argued it wasn’t his client, but that third friend, who dealt the fatal blows.
Aung Win apparently had, in fact, stabbed that third friend, Thein Oo, earlier the evening of April 7 with a kitchen knife during a prolonged argument. But he could not be located to testify, and he has not been charged with any crime relating to Aung Win’s death.
On the afternoon of April 8, police were called to a southeast-side apartment complex on Fayette Drive, home to a number of Burmese and Laotian residents.
Inside the apartment, they found Aung Win’s body. Earlier in the day, a friend discovered the body, covered up with a blanket and sitting next to Nyunt Shwe and Thein Oo on the couch. Police were notified when that man notified another man who told Aung Win’s son, according to testimony Tuesday.
One of the final witnesses called Thursday morning by Nyunt Shwe’s court-appointed attorney, Quinton Ellis, was a local pastor who works with the Burmese community and paid a visit to the apartment complex April 8.
The Rev. James Keller testified Thursday the woman he visited answered the door visibly upset and told him a man she knew had come to her door and told her he had just killed someone. Scared, she had shut the door in the man’s face, Keller said.
The pastor said the woman identified her visitor as Thein Oo, using his common nickname.
During his closing arguments Thursday, Ellis continually referred to an interrogation video that had been viewed by jurors.
He said the long interrogation wore down Nyunt Shwe, who had tuberculosis and was further weakened from the night of drinking. Only during the last 10 minutes or so of a four-hour interrogation, during which Nyunt Shwe was shackled to a wall, does he acquiesce to detectives’ accusations, Ellis said.
And Ellis, who earlier called a Burmese interpreter to testify, reminded jurors there had been some translation errors made during Nyunt Shwe’s interrogation.
Despite the attempts by the defense to pin the killing on the second man, Prosecutor Adam Mildred told jurors during his closing arguments what Nyunt Shwe admitted fit the descriptions of the charges.
“Even if he didn’t mean to kill him, ‘reckless homicide’ is there,” Mildred said.
The jury convicted Nyunt Shwe of all the charges, but Chief Deputy Prosecutor Michael McAlexander said the Class C felony charges of reckless homicide, battery with a deadly weapon and involuntary manslaughter will merge into the more serious Class B felony charge of aggravated battery at sentencing.
