DOCUMENT 264

ELECTRONICALLY FILED
4/24/2014 10:25 AM
01-CC-2012-001558.00
CIRCUIT COURT OF
JEFFERSON COUNTY, ALABAMA
ANNE-MARIE ADAMS, CLERK

IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF JEFFERSON COUNTY, ALABAMA

BIRMINGHAM DIVISION

STATE OF ALABAMA
V.
PORTER KATRINA SYLVAN
Defendant.

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CC-2012-001558.00

ORDER ON SENTENCING

On January 4, 2012 this defendant was charged with Capital Murder (Intentional Murder during a
Burglary 1) along with co defendants Kevin Porter (CC 2012-1559) and Alex Carter (CC20121557). Kevin Porter is her brother and Alex Carter is her husband. This case (along with the codefendant cases) was assigned to this Court to handle from arrest and charging thru jury verdict.
(By Administrative Order of the presiding judge allowing Circuit Judges to act as District Judges
for Capital Murder cases.) After finding this defendant indigent this Court appointed the
Honorable Mike Blalock and Honorable Alaric May to represent her. DDAs Joe Hicks and Julie
McMakin were assigned to prosecute. The courts file will reflect that a preliminary hearing was
held and later the case indicted by the Jefferson County Grand Jury on May 4, 2012. The courts
record will further reflect that the defendant was arraigned in open court, with her attorneys
present and motions hearings were held.
This matter was first set for trial on November 18, 2013 when a jury was struck and sworn and
testimony was presented by the state. At the close of the States case the defendant moved for a
mistrial and a mistrial was declared. The case was reset for trial April 14, 2014. Court Reporter
Julie Carter was present and recorded all proceedings for each defendant.
In June of 2013 Defendant Kevin Porter was tried and convicted by a jury of capital murder and
was later sentenced by this court to Life Without the Possibility of Parole.
Defendant Alex Carter pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to twenty years split
five years to serve after making a plea agreement with the State of Alabama on April 17, 2014.
On Monday April 14, 2014 this matter came to be tried. A jury of 14 was selected, empanelled
and sworn. Opening statements were made. The State of Alabama presented testimony from the
following witnesses:
Niaisha McQueen who testified that the victim, Barbara Freeman was her mother. She had last
seen Ms Freeman just hours before her death on December 21, 2011. Ms Freeman had come to
visit with Ms McQueen and her children. During the visit and shortly before her mother left

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McQueen testified that her mother received a telephone call from Larry Whittleslee, her mothers
boyfriend. McQueen did not hear the conversation. The next time she saw her mother she was
deceased. She also was able to identify the keys found in the back door of her mothers
apartment as her mothers keys.
Antonio Williams who testified that he was a neighbor of Barbara Freeman. On the night of
December 21, 2011 he heard a verbal argument outside his window. He looked out and observed
Freeman and this defendant fighting. At some point he heard a gunshot and then heard Larry
Whittleslee say to the women: Bs take it in the house! The fight then broke up and the
defendant left going in the direction of a cut between two apartment buildings. He then
observed Freeman and Whittleslee have an argument and then saw Whittleslee get in his truck
and drive away. Within a short time frame he testified that he saw the defendant and two males
return and head straight for Freemans apartment. Then he heard a gunshot and saw the same
three people leave Freemans apartment. During this incident he made two 911 calls. The first
was during the fight and the second was after he heard the gunshot coming from the victims
apartment. He was able to identify the defendant as the person who was involved in the fight
with the victim and one of the three persons who returned to the victims apartment and left after
the gunshot. Under cross examination he admitted that he had never seen any of the three
defendants before that night. He also testified that the only weapon he saw when the three
returned was being carried by one of the two males. He also acknowledged under cross
examination that he did see the other male, identified as this defendants brother, Kevin Porter,
present during the earlier fight between the two women.
Ronald Taylor testified that he, too, was a neighbor of the victims. He was in bed when he
heard the first gunshot that night, according to his testimony. He stated that his cousin came and
got him out of bed and then he went to look out a window and was looking straight out at the
altercation. He stated he saw two women fighting on the ground. He identified the defendant in
court and stated she was on top of the victim. He further testified that two dudes broke up the
fight. He then observed Barbara Freeman go inside her apartment and saw this defendant and
one of the other defendants leave going in the direction between the cut of the two apartment
buildings. He also saw Larry Whittleslee get in his truck and drive away. Then he saw this
defendant and the two co defendants come back from the same direction that two of them had
left minutes before. He saw all three go inside Freemans apartment and about 5-10 minutes later
he heard a gunshot and then observed all three run out of the apartment in the same order he saw
them go in. He, also, testified that the only weapon he saw was an assault rifle in co-defendant
Alex Carters hands. He testified that while he didnt know these three defendants he was
acquainted with them from the neighborhood. On cross examination he acknowledged that his
34 year old cousin, Terrance, also witnessed the entire incident as well. Also, on cross
examination he stated he saw the three defendants knock on the victims door but then pushed it
open and went inside. On cross examination he also acknowledged that he did originally tell the
police that he did not know the defendants.
Birmingham Police Officer Michael Burnett testified that he and Birmingham Police Officer
Harville were the first officers on the scene. They testified that they first spoke with the lady in
the upstairs apartment (Marsha Jackson) who asked her to check on Freeman downstairs. First
they went to the front door and then went around to the back door (which is where the testimony
indicated that the defendants had entered). At the back door they noted that the keys were in the

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lock and the door was slightly open. They were able to push the door open and immediately saw
the victim laying face down in the doorway between the kitchen and the living area of the
apartment. Officer Burnett testified that he saw blood on the screen door of the apartment. Under
cross examination he testified that he found the apartment to have been in disarray as if a fight
had occurred.
Birmingham Police Detective Talana Brown testified that she was the investigator in charge of
this case. She testified that she went to the scene that night with a team of other investigators
who assist each other in the investigation of homicides. She testified that the location of the
homicide was in the Birmingham Division of Jefferson County. She testified that during the
course of her investigation she was able to rule out Larry Whittleslee as a suspect by forensic
comparison of the weapon possessed by Whittleslee and the projectile fragments taken from the
victims body. She also testified that within hours of beginning her investigation she developed
the three charged defendants as suspects in the death of Barbara Freeman. She also learned that
the three defendants lived within blocks of the victim. Under cross examination she testified that
she did put Larry Whittleslee in custody for 48 hours as she sorted through the evidence.
Detective Brown testified that she had located Whittleslee at Princeton Hospital where he was
being treated for a knife wound to his finger that he stated was caused by the victim as he was
trying to break up the fight between her and the defendant. While at the hospital he had placed a
911 call to the Birmingham Police to report his injury. However, he did give a false name
during that call. A search of his truck revealed a Highpoint .380 caliber pistol and some dark
clothing. (The witnesses described the suspects as wearing dark clothing.) Detective Brown
acknowledged conducting several photo line ups for witnesses in this case; some involved photos
of the suspects and some did not. Contrary to the previous scene witnesses testimony, Detective
Brown also acknowledged that she did observe the victims pick up truck parked at her back door
on the night of the incident.
Roxanne Murray, Birmingham Police Crime Scene technician testified that she processed the
scene for evidence. She took photographs and collected items some of which were later
compared by forensic scientists. Collected in the area where the witnesses described the initial
fight between this defendant and Barbara Freeman were a knife with a purple handle, a strand of
hair, a broken piece of glass and a .380 caliber shell casing. Inside the apartment she found no
spent shell casings. On cross examination she testified that she did attempt to locate prints from
the broken glass but found none. She did not swab the glass for blood typing nor did she
swab the knife.
Marsha Jackson, a friend and upstairs neighbor of the victim, testified that she was told by her
daughter that there was a fight out in the back of their apartment. She testified she looked out
and saw two females fighting. She knew Barbara Freeman and knew of Katrina Porter. When
she started watching she saw Porter pulling Freeman by the hair. She testified that then Porters
brother, Kevin Porter, joined in and starting fighting the victim as well. Then she heard Larry
Whittleslee tell the women to stop. She did not see or hear Whittleslee fire a weapon. She then
saw the Porters leave through the same cut as described by the other witnesses. At about the
same time she observed the victim being pushed into her apartment by Larry Whittleslee. She
stated that this happened around 11 pm or midnight. She identified Katrina Porter as the other
female involved in the fight with Barbara Freeman. She stated she was an acquaintance of
Katrina Porter but was not a close friend. Once inside the apartment she heard the victim

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screaming. She heard Larry Whittleslee scream that he had been cut and she saw him get in his
truck and left. The next thing she heard was the victim yelling: Who is this? And then she heard
the defendant Katrina Porter say: Im the bitch that just whooped your ass. She then heard
noises that sounded to her like a fight and then heard a loud pop. She testified she assumed it
was a gunshot. She called 911 for the second time. Per her testimony she also tried to reach the
victim by phone but got no answer. She testified the police came to the front of the apartments
and she directed them to come around to the back. When she went to meet the police at the front
of the building she did not see Larry Whittleslee or his truck. On cross examination she admitted
that her first statement to the police on the night/early morning of the incident was mostly lies as
she was fearful of the defendants. She stated she eventually told the truth to a police officer that
she knew because she was a snitch for him-provided him information concerning drug activity
in her neighborhood. Under cross examination she also acknowledged that after the fight in the
back of the apartments she heard Barbara say to Larry: I already got my ass whipped. You just
go on back to your babys momma. On cross this witness admitted that she had told a variety of
different versions of what she witnessed that night.
Mitch Rector, a Birmingham Police Department Firearms Examiner, testified that he examined
the Highpoint .380 found in Whittleslees truck, the .380 caliber shell casing found outside the
apartment and the fragments taken from the body of Barbara Freeman. In his opinion the shell
casing was fired from the Highpoint .380 caliber semi automatic handgun but the fragments
recovered from the victims body was not fired from that gun. Under cross examination he
testified that those fragments could have been fired from an assault rifle but were more than
likely fired from a handgun.
Dr. Gary Simmons with the Jefferson County Coroner/Medical Examiners Office performed the
autopsy on the victim. In his opinion her cause of death was the result of a gunshot wound to the
back of her head. He also testified that she suffered from a variety of injuries to her face that
were indicative of a beating some time before her death. He also testified that her Blood Alcohol
Level at the time of her death was .24. Under cross examination he stated that in comparing her
Blood Alcohol Level with her Vitreous level he could tell that her alcohol level was going down
at the time of her death.
The state rested its case after Dr. Simmons testified. The Defendant made a Motion for Judgment
of Acquittal which was denied by this Court. The Defense then rested. The jury was charged, the
alternates released, and the twelve jurors began their deliberations. After an evening recess the
following morning the jury returned a verdict finding the defendant guilty of Capital Murder.
While waiting on the defendants Mitigation Expert to arrive from Tuscaloosa the parties entered
into an agreement that the sentence would be Life Imprisonment Without the Possibility of
Parole. This Court accepted that agreement and then and there imposed said sentence.
Based on the above it is the Judgment and the Sentence of the Court that the defendant be
sentenced to Life Imprisonment Without the Possibility of Parole. All costs of court are retaxed.
Restitution is reserved.

DONE this 24th day of April, 2014.

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/s/ LAURA PETRO

CIRCUIT JUDGE