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A man accused of fatally shooting a Kearns man in 2014 did so believing the victim had slept with a woman the shooter knew, prosecutors said Tuesday during opening statements in a five-day murder trial.
Douglas Dwayne Evans, 34, came to the home of Theodore "Ted" Kelbach, 49, on May 31, 2014, and knocked loudly on the door, prosecutors and a witness told a 3rd District Court jury.
At the time, only Kelbach and a different woman, Tiffany Trujillo, were in the home. Kelbach told Trujillo he would see who was at the door and things were quiet for a few minutes, the woman testified.
"A moment later, Tiffany heard Ted shout, 'I haven't seen her, I swear,' then there was a loud bang," said Deputy Salt Lake County District Attorney Ethan Rampton during his opening remarks.
Trujillo hurried to see what caused what she said sounded like a "crack," and noticed something moving outside. She looked through a small hole in a blanket covering a window and saw a man walking down the driveway toward a silver sedan.
She then found Kelbach face down in a pool of blood. He'd been shot through the eye at close range and died soon after.
In a frantic call to 911, Trujillo described the hair of person she saw — a piece of testimony that defense attorneys sought to highlight.
"It was loose and curly, pulled in a ponytail," Trujillo recalled of the man, adding that it wasn't braided or in dreadlocks.
In court on Tuesday, Evans wore his hair in tight dreadlocks that fell past his shoulders. Defense attorneys said Evans' hair looked the same way on the night of Kelbach's death.
Jurors also heard from Sarah Harrison, a neighbor of Kelbach's, who described seeing a black man with long dreadlocks walking up Kelbach's driveway, at 5446 S. Nez Perce Drive (5080 West), as she arrived home from work on the night of the shooting.
Authorities said Evans knew Kelbach and had been to the home before the night of the shooting.
Trujillo told jurors she had met Kelbach only the night before the shooting and returned the next day. It wasn't clear if she had seen Evans before. She said her budding relationship with Kelbach wasn't romantic.
Charging documents say detectives learned from a female acquaintance of Evans' that he "suspected [her] of infidelity with Mr. Kelbach."
Prosecutors said Tuesday that investigators found texts from the day of the shooting in which Evans accused that acquaintance of cheating on him with Kelbach and threatening violence with a gun.
Prosecutors also said they have DNA evidence from a red hat left at the scene that matches Evans', and phone data that links him to the area around the time of Kelbach's death.
Defense attorney Neil Webster used his opening statement to sow doubt into the prosecution's narrative, saying Trujillo had been to the house the night before the killing.
"Perhaps, someone [other than Evans] was there looking for her," Webster said.
Webster also said the phone data wasn't precise enough to be considered strong evidence, and he questioned the accuracy of DNA testing.
Evans is charged with first-degree felony counts of murder and aggravated burglary, and second-degree felony possession of a dangerous weapon by a restricted person, which pertains to a 2004 conviction for first-degree felony disarming a police officer.
Twitter: @TaylorWAnderson