25-year-old Sean Michael Angold, who admits to dealing and smoking meth around the time of the pair of seemingly random murders that shocked the Bay Area last October, took the stand Tuesday to deliver testimony in the preliminary hearing of friends Morrison Haze Lampley and Lila Scott Alligood. Lampley and Alligood stand accused of two murders in a robbery and killing spree that began October 2 when the group met Canadian tourist Audrey Carey. For the first time, via Angold, we get first-hand details about where and how they met Carey and decided to rob her, and how they later decided to kill 67-year-old Steven Carter on a Fairfax hiking trail.
Carey was chosen because "she was foreign and possibly had money," as the Chronicle quotes Angold as testifying, but he and Lampley allegedly met her first out by the windmills near Ocean Beach, where they were just hanging out and smoking meth and pot. Carey apparently approached them and asked to join them and "together they drank beer and smoked weed." It wasn't until later that the group concocted the plan to rob her, which Alligood participated in, using a gun that they had stolen the day before while randomly pulling on car handles around Coit Tower.
Angold explains how the murder took place after the group had gone for pizza together and returned to the windmills to smoke more pot we know, too, that Carey had meth in her system.
According to the Chronicle, Angold claims he had gotten up to urinate and came back to find that Alligood had tackled Carey. He further admitted that he went to hold down her legs and that Lampley allegedly straddled her and hit her in the face.
Per ABC 7's account of the testimony, "He spoke tearfully about her final moments," saying that Carey said, "Get off me, what are you guys doing?" before Lampley allegedly replied, "Shut up, bitch, or I’ll kill you." Similar to the second-hand account we got via Alligood's initial police interviews, Angold confirmed that after pleading for her life, Carey said, "Just kill me then," and that was when Lampley allegedly pulled the trigger.
Angold himself said he had "been on a run of meth" for a week before he met up with Lampley and Alligood, who arrived in San Francisco from San Diego, and introduced themselves to him as husband and wife. And his memory is apparently patchy about some of the week in question. It's unclear where in this timeline, for instance, the group would have traveled to Lucky 13, where a witness is likely going to testify at trial to seeing Alligood trying to use what may have been one of Carey's credit cards while Carey was with her.
As for how the chose their next victim, Carter, Angold testified that following Carey's killing, they biked to Marin, slept at the Golden Gate vista point, and continued biking on trails that led them to the Fairfax parking lot where they spotted Carter pull in with his silver Volkswagen Jetta station wagon. Per the Chron and ABC 7, Angold says Carter "looked at us like we were crazy," and tried to avoid them by moving on to a different parking lot. Believing that he was trying to get away from them, and that he'd be a good target because of his age, Angold says Alligood picked him out to shoot and steal his car. They apparently tried following him on the hiking trail, where he'd brought his Doberman Pinscher, only to lose him and then decide to wait for him to return.
Lampley allegedly shot Carter several times, including through his wallet they later used bullet-torn bills to buy gas and shot the dog in the eye.
According to Angold, "The dog cried."
Angold is expected to continue his testimony further on Wednesday, and defense attorneys for Lampley and Alligood are trying to claim that Angold played a bigger role in the killings and that he is "lying to save his own skin." They also will likely be trying to point out the contradictions between his testimony and other details already presented.
A judge is expected to decide at the conclusion of the hearing if there is enough evidence to bring the two defendants to trial. Angold will 15 years as part of his plea bargain.
