ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, January 20, 1997 TAG: 9701200103
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JAN VERTEFEUILLE STAFF WRITER
The Roanoke Times obtained a copy of the Charlotte police file on Mark Garrett's death last month when a North Carolina judge signed a court order granting the newspaper access.
Evidence gathered by the police contradicts Javier Cruz's story of killing Garrett in self-defense.
In an interview with The Roanoke Times before he left Roanoke, Cruz said Garrett was trying to choke Letty Smith, Garrett's date, while riding in Cruz's van and that he wouldn't let go. Cruz said he picked up a gun because he thought Smith was in imminent danger of being killed.
He fled, Cruz said, because a friend told him that no matter how the shooting occurred, he would get the death penalty because he was a foreigner.
But according to a 10-page statement Smith gave police the day after the shooting, she wasn't in the van when Garrett was shot.
Cruz, Garrett and Smith had been out drinking together the night of July 30, 1987. Garrett had been arguing with both Cruz and Smith all evening, Smith told police. Garrett had told her that Cruz had put a gun to Garrett's head earlier in the evening outside Garrett's apartment, she said.
After Garrett grabbed her by the neck, she said, she jumped out of the van and began walking away. Smith said Cruz fired twice before killing Garrett.
"When I heard the first gunshot, I turned around and looked in that direction. ... The passenger door was open. Mark was yelling, 'You're going to have to kill me' before the second shot. [Cruz] had the gun in his right hand with his left hand up like he was going to push Mark out," Smith's statement says.
Garrett died from a single gunshot wound to the back of the head. Cruz pushed Garrett's body out of the van into a ditch at the side of the road.
Police also interviewed Garrett's roommate, who said he had met Cruz only a few times. A few weeks before the shooting, the roommate said, Cruz had made an "off-the-wall statement" that if he "ever had to shoot anybody, he would have to leave the United States to go to South America." Garrett's roommate said he didn't know why Cruz said that or what it meant at the time.
The Charlotte police file shows that Cruz was arrested twice in the 1980s for carrying a concealed weapon.
Cruz also was arrested three times in Florida on drug charges: twice for possession of cocaine in 1985, and once for possession of cocaine and Valium.
It's not clear from the file whether those charges resulted in convictions.
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