A damning recording caught a Tennessee college football player trying to convince his pals to lie and help him ditch the gun he allegedly used to kill his cheerleader girlfriend, according to reports.
William Riley Gaul, 19, is on trial for first-degree murder this week in the November 2016 shooting death of 16-year-old Emma Jean Walker, the Knoxville News Sentinel reported.
“I’m trusting you guys with my life because this is 70 years in jail if I’m convicted of something I didn’t do,” Gaul reportedly said to friends in an undercover video recorded days after Walker was found dead in her bed.
Related:Crocodile tears! College football player, William Riley Gaul, 18, charged with killing High School cheerleader, Emma Walker, whose passing he’s been mourning publicly
The recording, which was revealed in court testimony Thursday, was reportedly made by his buddies at the request of investigators.
Prosecutors allege that the Maryville College football player killed his girlfriend because she broke up with him, then made a lengthy tribute professing his love to her on social media.
https://www.knoxnews.com/videos/news/local/tennessee/2018/05/04/undercover-video-gaul-making-plans-dispose-gun/578860002/
In the undercover video, Gaul told friends that he was too “worried” about being arrested to mourn the Central High School cheerleader’s death, according to the newspaper.
“I want to be upset but I can’t,” Gaul said.
William Riley Gaul and Emma WalkerTwitter
He now admits via defense attorney Wesley Stone he stole his grandfather’s gun and used it to fire two shots through the bedroom wall of Walker’s North Knox County home. Stone contends Gaul didn’t know a bullet could travel through the wall and only meant to scare Walker so he could show up as her hero.
But prosecutors on Thursday called three of Gaul’s friends Isaac Ewers, Noah Walton and Alex McCarty weren’t buying the kidnapping tale.
to the witness stand to attack that defense as yet another lie in a series Gaul told in the days before and after Walker’s death.
The first lie came two days before her death when Gaul claimed to have been kidnapped in a ruse to get Walker to talk to him. Walker was trying to break off a two-year relationship with Gaul fraught with fights and parental upset.But his friends Ewers, Walton and McCarty were not convinced about the kidnapping tale.
Gaul’s lawyers argue that the suspect fired shots through Walker’s bedroom wall but didn’t intend to kill her. They claimed he only wanted to scare Walker so he could play the part of hero.
“It was a bald-faced lie – over and over again,” Ewers testified Thursday.
A day after the kidnapping claim, Gaul confessed to McCarty that he had stolen his grandfather’s gun.
“He told me he was so concerned about his safety he had stolen his grandfather’s gun,” McCarty said.
McCarty told Ewers and Walton about Gaul’s confession, but they didn’t call authorities or alert anyone.
When asked ‘Why did you tell them about the gun?’
“I didn’t want to get my friend in trouble,” Ewers said.
The next night – a few hours before Walker was believed to have been shot – Gaul phoned Walton with a strange question.
Walton, his roommate, said “He asked me, if I knew how to remove fingerprints from a gun,” Walton said.
He was arrested in November 2016 just as he was about to dump a bag of evidence, including the gun, in the Tennessee River, according to the newspaper.
The trial is set to continue Monday.
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