STATE - CRACK DEAL LED TO KILLING

Suspect in Hammer Slaying Wanted a Rebate on Money He Gave the Victim
for Cocaine, Prosecutors Say

BARTOW - A Lakeland man who thought he'd been ripped off by his crack
dealer beat the man to death with a hammer then attacked the victim's
wife, who saved her life by pretending she was dead, a prosecutor told
jurors Tuesday.

Timothy McElrath told police about the attack in detail the day after
theslaying, Assistant State Attorney Hardy Pickard said during opening
statements in McElrath's first-degree murder trial.

Prosecutors have said they will seek the death penalty if McElrath is
convicted.

The victim, Kelvin Powell, who lived with his wife, Jackie Powell, on
Davis Avenue in North Lakeland, was missing one eye and was legally
blind, Pickard said.

McElrath was a hard-core crack addict and Powell was McElrath's
regular dealer, according to Pickard.

On the afternoon of Aug. 27, 2005, a Saturday, Jackie Powell ran to
her neighbor's house, covered in blood, and told them to call 911.

"Then she went back to her house and sat on a lawn chair and waited
for the police to arrive," Pickard said.

Inside the house, Polk County sheriff's deputies found Powell curled
up on the floor next to his dining room table. He had been repeatedly
hit in the head with a hammer, Pickard said. Jackie Powell told
deputies that "Tim did it," Pickard said.

The next day, McElrath surrendered at the Polk County Jail. "He said
he knew that the police were looking for him and he had messed up big
time," Pickard said.

McElrath told sheriff's investigators that on the day he killed
Powell, he smoked $300 worth of crack cocaine and then stormed over to
Powell's house, angry because he felt that Powell hadn't given him all
of the crack he'd paid for in a drug purchase that week.

When Powell refused to give him the money, McElrath told detectives,
he grabbed a hammer that was on top of Powell's refrigerator and hit
Powell in the head several times. When Jackie Powell raced into the
room, he told detectives, he hit her too, with "some glass things" he
grabbed from the bathroom.

Jackie Powell survived by falling to the floor and pretending to be
dead, Pickard said. In a brief opening statement, defense lawyer David
Carmichael said the basic facts of the case aren't in dispute. But
Carmichael said what happened was not first-degree murder.

"That requires premeditation or a plan," Carmichael said. Instead,
Carmichael argued, it was manslaughter, something that happened in the
heat of the moment. Testimony is expected to begin today.