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Guilty

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Joshua Rounsoville was sentenced to life in prison on Monday after a Monroe County jury found him guilty of shooting and paralyzing Zapareo Glover during a carjacking at the Forsyth Dairy Queen last August.

"It's a relief," said a smiling Glover, "justice has been served."

The jury reached guilty verdicts on seven different counts after about two hours of deliberation on Monday evening. The 12 jurors apparently didn't buy a last-minute change in Rounsoville!s story aimed at naming his co-defendant, 21-year-old Robert Elam Burke, as the trigger man. Rounsoville was the first of three defendants, all from Eatonton, to be tried in the shooting.

OVER THE past year, Rounsoville, 21, had said very little to investigators about what happened the night of Aug. 10, 2008. That's when Glover was shot in the chest as he returned to his 1985 Caprice Classic with a Blizzard in the DQ parking lot,

After being struck, Glover collapsed to the ground, while Rounsoville jumped in the vehicle and drove down Hwy. 83 toward Monticello. Rounsoville had also said very little about charges that he murdered a Warner Robins man and stole his car two weeks after the Dairy Queen shooting.

On Wednesday, co-defendant Burke took the stand. He had reached a plea agreement with prosecutors last month that in return for his testimony he would get just 10 years in prison for theft by taking. But as Burke testified that Rounsoville was the trigger man, the normally reserved Rounsoville yelled out from his defense table.

"You're lying, tell them who shot that boy," said Rounsoville.

Judge Tommy Wilson quickly ordered the jury to leave and reprimanded Rounsoville; who was apologetic. But both sides agreed it was a turning point in the trial. nesses and introduced reams of evidence, none more important than tests showing Rounsoville's fingerprint was on the driver's side window of Glover's car. Also, he played videotape from the Burger King showing the three men at the restaurant looking at an Autotrader magazine just before the shooting. And several witnesses testified that the shooter matched a description of Rounsoville, slender with a white shirt, and shorts.

As the state built its case, Rounsoville could be seen writing intently on a legal pad on both Thursday and Friday.

And on Monday, jurors found out what he had been crafting. Rounsoville took the stand and fingered Burke as the shooter. He said he had been scared to tell the truth because people had threatened to do his family harm if he did. But he said in recent days his family begged him to tell the full story.

Public defender Jim Right called Rounsoville to the stand Monday where he spent three hours telling his new story about the night.

Sometimes referring to his notes during his testimony, Rounsoville didn't deny involvement in the case. Rather, he said he stayed in a red Ford Explorer with the third defendant, driver Stewart Brannen, while Burke shot Glover and stole the car.

Rounsoville said Burke and Brannen went to the DQ to smoke a joint in the parking lot before the carjacking. He said he was scared watching Glover being shot, falling to the ground and pounding on the door of his Caprice Classic. He said he was so frightened he started to run into the nearby Wal-Mart parking lot.

Instead, the two cars sped away. But Rounsoville said he made Brannen pull over on a side road off Hwy. 83 in Monroe County where he yanked Burke out of the stolen Carprice and beat him up before taking the wheel of the stolen car to dispose of it. Rounsoville said that Burke put the gun on the hood of the Caprice Classic before he laid into him, and that it was the first time he saw the gun that was used.

BUT MILAM spent two hours poking holes in Rounsoville's testimony. Using a giant easel pad, Milam listed the lies

Rounsoville admitted telling to his own father about the case, to a Putnam County judge whom he faced on an unrelated charge the next day and to Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills about throwing the gun off the Little River Bridge.

Milam honed in on his claim to have beat up Burke because of righteous indignation about the shooting. Noting that Burke weighed at least 100 pounds more than Rounsoville, he marveled at Rounsoville's claim that he pulled Burke out of the car and then beat him' up after Burke voluntarily laid his gun on the hood of the car.

"You attacked a man twice your size who had a pistol?" asked Milam. "You must be the bravest man in Putnam County."

"Size doesn't matter," replied Rounsoville. "I had to get on him for putting me in that predicament."

And Milam asked how his fingerprint wound up on Glover's car. Rounsoville said it must have happened when he took on the 280-pound Burke.

"Were you fighting with the car?" replied Milam.

Several witnesses, of which Anthony Green, Marshall Swansea and a Dairy Queen employee were numbered, identified the shooter as being slender and wearing short pants, said Milam. And video from the Burger King showed that of the three defendants only Rounsoville had short jeans on that night, with the other two wearing long pants. Still Rounsoville was defiant.

"Everybody that testified against me lied," said Rounsoville.

Rounsoville admitted that he was late to a court hearing on an unrelated charge in Putnam County the next morning, Aug. 11. He admitted lying to the judge by saying he was late because he'd been in a bad car wreck the night before. In fact, he admitted watching the news to get an update on Glover's condition. He said he cried when he learned he was paralyzed and he apologized to the family for what happened.

"I swear to God I didn't shoot that man," said Rounsoville. "My mama didn't raise me to shoot nobody. I'm not no thug. I was 20 years old and I was too busy chasing women to hurt anybody."

STILL, ROUNSOVILLE admitted being the one to ditch Glover's car behind a Putnam County home that night. It was found by police the next day. And he also admitted receiving a Monte Carlo that belonged to Mario Smith, the Warner Robins man found murdered in the storage unit where he kept the car. Milam introduced evidence from that case as well, aiming to show that Rounsoville was on a killing spree merely to get the wheels and rims off of automobiles. That case will be tried in Houston County and the state is seeking the death penalty.

Rounsoville claimed he was just trying to buy the car and didn't know the owner had been killed. He said he took possession of the car after meeting a friend behind a church somewhere in Macon, and that he had scrounged up $400-$500 for the car with a promise of later payment once he sold the wheels.

But Milam asked why a man who killed someone to get a car would be willing to sell it to Rounsoville for $400.

And he introduced evidence showing that the casings from the shooting in Forsyth and Warner Robins were both from the same .9 mm pistol. The gun was never found. In his testimony Monday, Rounsoville said his dad had asked him whether the same guns were used, and he admitting lying when he told his dad they were not.

"It's hard to keep up with this story," said Milam.

Rounsoville went on to claim that he lied under questioning because Putnam County investigators threatened to take him out into the woods and beat him if he didn't talk. He conceded they never did beat him though.

PUBLIC DEFENDER

Right admitted in his closing argument that his strategy changed after his client's new testimony.

"I'll be the first to tell you," said Right. "Joshua Rounsoville is no angel. I wouldn't let him near my car."

But he said testimony from witness Marshall Swansea raised doubts as to whether Rounsoville was the shooter. Swansea said the man fleeing in the Caprice Classic appeared to have dreadlocks underneath the shirt tied around his head, and that only Burke had dreadlocks.

But in his closing Milam said Swansea merely thought he saw white beads, which could have been anything. He painted Rounsoville as a cold-blooded killer determined to destroy any eyewitness who saw him steal their cars, and that his motivation was to take their wheels and rims, remove their Vehicle Identification Numbers (VTNs) and put them back into circulation.

Milam said that while some people look at criminality as the difference between the haves and have-nots, it's really the difference between the wills and the will-nots in society. He noted the contrast between Glover, who worked as a delivery driver to make enough money to get his car, a paint job and the wheels he wanted, and Rounsoville, who refused to work for what he wanted, choosing to kill and steal instead.

He said Rounsoville concocted a ridiculous story to try to escape the truth of his actions.

"Mr. Glover will have to deal with this the rest of his life," Milam told jurors. "Make that man deal with what he did the rest of his life."

THE JURY got the case around 4:30 p.m. Having begun their long days in the courtroom a week earlier, jurors asked for supper and deliberated into the evening. At around 7 p.m. they returned guilty verdicts on all seven counts. The charges were armed robbery, aggravated battery, hijacking, aggravated assault, possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony and possession of a firearm during the commission of a violent felony-second offense. Wilson immediately sentenced Rounsoville to the maximum for each count, totalling life in prison plus 80 years. He will be eligible for parole in 30 years. Wilson said that Rounsoville and Burke both perjured themselves on the stand, and announced he would not accept the plea agreement between Burke and the state.

Meanwhile, Milam said he'll go through the same case again very soon with Brannen's trial.

Outside, family members crowded around Glover's wheelchair and hugged him, saying they are very grateful to everyone who helped in the case.

Meanwhile, Rounsoville's mother, who sat through the entire the trial, sobbed and embraced family members in the courtroom.



Copyright 2009 The Monroe County Reporter, Forsyth, Georgia. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from SmallTownPapers, Inc.

© 2009 The Monroe County Reporter Forsyth, Georgia. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from DAS.

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