Trial in LI motivational speaker's death begins

A tale of desperation and a grisly killing wrapped in a legal puzzle will take center stage Thursday as the trial of Kenneth Minor for the murder of Woodmere motivational speaker Jeffrey Locker opens in State Supreme Court in Manhattan.

The case, which first made headlines in July 2009, may focus less on the defendant than the victim - Locker, 52, and married with children, who was found in a rough part of East Harlem slumped in his Chevy Lumina. Hands bound and ligature marks on his neck, he was dead from multiple stab wounds to the chest.

Initial speculation was that either car trouble or prostitution drew Locker to the neighborhood where he died. But substantial evidence now supports what Minor told police after he was caught using Locker's ATM card - that the Long Islander had recruited him to help escape a financial morass by committing suicide.

And that claim, both sides say, will make the case a precedent-setting test of the line between murder and assisted suicide. Prosecutors say no one can consent to their own murder, but the defense argues that all Minor did was hold a knife while Locker lunged onto it.

"He's doing the dirty work," says defense lawyer Daniel Gotlin. "He's stabbing himself."

In 2009, at the time of the killing, Locker's website described him as a "spiritualist" whose seminars would help business people "create more Peace, Joy and Fulfillment." It featured a picture of a beaming, youthful, confident man whose top shirt button was decorated with a yin-and-yang design.

Prosecutors now concede, however, that Locker faced a deepening financial crisis. He had recently bulked up on life insurance coverage to a total of $18 million. He had also, they say, checked on funeral arrangements and exchanged e-mails with family members that seemed to anticipate his death.

And jurors may also hear about e-mails with family members, disclosed by prosecutors, that discuss keeping his estate away from creditors and making a videotape that his youngest daughter could see when she married.

Minor, 38, an ex-con with a record including robbery and drugs, is not expected to testify. But another man who says Locker approached him with the suicide-by-hire plan is expected to testify, and police will tell the jury about Minor's confession.

In the killing itself, Minor told police, Locker supplied the knife and impaled himself repeatedly on his torso while Minor held it. Prosecutors contend that Minor plunged the knife into Locker, and both sides are expected to call forensic experts.

But legal rulings on the definition of assisted suicide may have as much effect on the outcome as the facts.

In New York, "causing or aiding" another person to commit suicide is considered manslaughter, which carries a lesser penalty than murder. No New York case has interpreted that language, and Gotlin says Minor fits within it.

Prosecutors argue the "assisted suicide" defense is designed to protect those who provide "passive" assistance, such as physicians who facilitate end-of-life decisions, against murder charges.

They say murder convictions have been upheld in other states for "active" participation - including a California case where a defendant held a ligature while a terminal AIDS patient strangled himself.

"Public policy must prevent killing even if a victim consents to it," wrote prosecutor Peter Casolaro.

Supreme Court Justice Carol Berkman, the presiding judge, has said that she accepts the active-passive distinction. Her instructions to the jury will be critical, and she warned last week that she's not yet convinced that Minor's version of the killing qualifies as "passive."

"Even by Mr. Minor's statement," she told Gotlin, "he's got some problems."