BY ANDY GARDNER
North Country This Week

CANTON -- The defense has rested in the Christopher Hebert murder case and closing arguments will be made this afternoon.

Hebert took the stand in his own defense this morning and testified that Lacey Yekel died of an overdose after injecting cocaine.

The 47-year-old is being tried in St. Lawrence County Court for second-degree murder for allegedly killing Lacey Yekel, who died at age 25 around June 7, 2014. Prosecutors say Hebert severely beat her and then choked her. Yekel's skeletal remains were recovered in woods near the Massena Industrial Park on Aug. 29, 2014.

He said he met up with Yekel at Gerald Dissottle's residence, and Yekel asked him for more cocaine and said she had stolen guns from a relative and would give them to Hebert to pay the debt.

He said they went to his mother's house and went for a 4-wheeler ride, and then went to the Massena Industrial Park, where Yekel told him the guns were stashed, and waited for it to get dark.

Hebert said he was selling cocaine at the time and kept the most potent portion of it for himself.

Hebert said he shot some of his cocaine, got out and started dry heaving, and when he looked back in the truck, Yekel was dead.

"I get back in the truck ... I see Lacey slumped to the side with her head down. I got scared something was wrong," Hebert testified. "I got in, went over to her and shook her, asked if she was alright. She didn't respond. I got scared. I listened to her heart. I didn't hear a heartbeat, she wasn't breathing, I got really scared."

Hebert said he then went to look for the guns, and they weren't there, so he called Dissottle and asked him if he had taken the weapons.

"He said something like 'what? you just left here, I don't have a car, how could I have taken the guns?'" Hebert testified, adding in his testimony that he only called Dissottle once.

Dissottle on Thursday, March 14 testified that he got a second call that night. "I heard some yelling and I kept saying 'hello' and nobody answered me,” Dissottle said on the stand. "I heard Lacey say 'you're crazy, what's wrong with you, stop.'"

Hebert said he decided to dump Yekel's body in the woods and remove her clothing because "I didn't want any of my DNA on her." He said he hid the clothes under a nearby rock and then threw her cell phone into the woods.

The defendant testified he then wrapped Yekel in a tarp because "I felt bad for her being naked on the ground and I went back to the truck and got the tarp we were going to cover the guns with and I went back and covered her."

"Were you thinking clearly at that point?" defense attorney Peter Dumas asked.

"No," Hebert answered.

"Were you still under the influence of the cocaine?" Dumas asked.

"Yes," Hebert said.

Afterward, Hebert said he went to McDonald's and injected more cocaine in the parking lot, and then called Brandy Bressard and told her something happened but he didn't want to get her involved.

The defendant said he had to go to see Justin LaShomb, his cocaine supplier, because he owed him $3,000. Hebert said on the way there he decided to tell LaShomb he murdered Yekel because LaShomb wouldn't give him more cocaine if he knew someone overdosed on it.

"Justin's expecting me to bring the guns there. I owe him money. I can't tell him some girl just OD'd on his drugs ... he's not going to give me more drugs, he's not going to give me more cocaine if I tell him some girl OD'd on his drugs," Hebert said. "I need to come up with something to tell him that's going to make him give me more drugs, that's going to pacify him. I figured if I told him that when the girl brought me to get the guns, the guns weren't there. I figured if I tell him I killed her, if I took credit for killing her, he'd see that as 'that's gangster' and he wouldn't hesitate to give me more."

On the way there, Hebert said he stopped at Twin Leaf and picked up a rock and put it on his seat so he could tell LaShomb that was the murder weapon.

"He's like ... what do you need, you need money?" Hebert testified. "I said to keep everything the same, I need more coke ... I was just trying to get out of there to get high."

The defendant said he went back to Massena and gave Bressard cocaine in exchange for the use of the truck. He then went to Jason Smith's house.

"I knew Jason had heroin and I knew he'd give me money, and he was Justin's buddy as he was mine ... I knew there was a good chance they'd talk back and forth so I told him the same story, modified it a little," Hebert said. "I couldn't remember what exactly I'd told Justin ... I knew I told him I'd bashed her skull in ... I told Jason I choked her too."

Hebert said telling Smith the story convinced him to give away new clothes and sneakers, a couple hundred dollars, and some heroin.

"I think I asked him for a shovel," Hebert said.

"Was there any point where you asked him for a hacksaw?" Dumas asked.

"No," Hebert said, later saying "Jason said I discussed dismembering a body. Ridiculous ... I didn't discuss anything about dismembering a body."

Smith testified earlier in the trial that Hebert had asked for shovels and a hacksaw and said he would need help dismembering Yekel's body.

Hebert said he later called Bressard and told her he had killed a man.

"I told Brandy that some dude had robbed me for $1,000 and I took him out in the woods, pisspounded him, beat him so bad where I knew for a fact he would have to go to the hospital, so I killed him," Hebert testified. "I told her that I took a rock and bashed, bashed the dude's skull in."

"If Brandy would have known I was with a girl she would have freaked out ... she's really jealous," Hebert said, adding that he went into grizzly detail about the assault because "Brandy gets off on that stuff."

"I know how Brandy thinks. I know what turns her on and I know that she wants to live through my vicariously. She wants to hear details and she told me that she wanted to hear details," he said.

Hebert testified that while serving time with James Waite in the St. Lawrence County jail last fall, he never told him he had killed Yekel. Waite testified Hebert admitted murdering her.

"I told him that Justin, Jason told the police to get out of jail the lies that I told them," Hebert said.

Bressard recorded two conversations with Hebert while he was locked up at Five Points Correctional Facility in 2017, one of which includes him describing killing Yekel. On Monday in court, Bressard testified that Hebert would take things he read in books and pass them off as his own. On the tape played in court yesterday, Hebert says Yekel told him "You killed me, I'm dead."

"Is there anywhere you got that phrase," Dumas asked.

"Stephen King's 'It' ... page 658 ... 'I'm killed! I'm killed!' ... to give the story authenticity," Hebert testified.

He can also be heard on the tape saying he told Yekel to "go towards the light."

"I told her to go towards the light ... I heard it in a movie ... 'Poltergeist' ... to make it more exciting," he said in court on Wednesday.

Cross Examination

Under cross-examination, District Attorney Gary Pasqua went after Hebert's reasoning that he lied about killing Yekel to look "gangster."

"To show yourself as a gangster, you told a story about killing a 24-year-old girl ... not a 6 foot 6 biker?" Pasqua said. "Did you tell a story about getting into a fight with the state police?"

"No I did not," Hebert said.

"Did you tell a story about killing a rival drug dealer?" Pasqua asked, to which Dumas objected, and Judge Jerome Richard sustained.

After he was arrested for murder last June, Hebert called a friend, Julia Larock, from the St. Lawrence County jail after he was arraigned on the indictment. Pasqua questioned why Hebert didn't just tell her Yekel overdosed.

"You didn't want to after you'd been indicted say 'nope it was an [overdose]," Pasqua asked.

Under cross examination, Hebert said he didn't make the overdose claim because his lawyer told him not to talk about the case.

Back under cross examination, Pasqua brought it back to the 2017 taped conversations with Bressard.

"If you ... knew Brandy was wearing a wire and cooperating with police, you wouldn't have admitted to murdering Lacey Yekel?" Pasqua asked.

"Yes that's correct," Hebert said.

Hebert testified that he hid Yekel's corpse because he didn't want to get charged with murdering her, even though he said her death was an overdose.

"With the mindset that you're going to go back to prison, you ran right out and told people you just murdered her?" Pasqua asked.

"People I got [drugs] from," Hebert said.

Pasqua also questioned why if the death was an overdose did Hebert not just dump the body and be gone.

"You never punched her ... never physically assaulted her ... there's not a mark on her?" the DA asked.

"No," Hebert said.

"You strip her ... carry her in the woods and leave her in a tarp," Pasqua asked.

"Yes," Hebert said.

"As opposed to leaving her on the side of the road? ... If she died of an overdose, there's nothing on her linking you to killing her, right?" Pasqua said.

"I don't know," Hebert said.

"Ever been around somebody who overdosed before Lacey?" Pasqua asked.

"Yes," Hebert answered.

"Did they live?" the DA asked back, to which the defendant answered "No"

"Was anybody prosecuted for their murder?" Pasqua asked, and again Hebert answered "No."

"And you were aware of that on June 7, 2014, yes?" the DA said, and Hebert answered "Yes."