LOS ANGELES, California — The retrial of a former Maine man arrested last year in connection with the shooting death of a homeless man in Hollywood will start Thursday, according to his lawyer, who is arguing that his client had taken the drug Ecstasy and didn’t know what he was doing when he killed the man.
Troy T. McVey, 22, is accused of shooting a transient, Richard Miller, 52, just before midnight on Jan. 4, 2015, at a busy intersection in the Hollywood district of Los Angeles. A short time later, McVey and Colby R. Kronholm, 21, both formerly of Greenville, were arrested together and charged with murder. The charge against Kronholm was dropped in October, Greg Risling, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office, said Monday.
“I expect the evidence to show Mr. McVey was under the influence of Ecstasy,” McVey’s attorney, Arthur Lindars of Los Angeles, said Tuesday by phone after a hearing that determined McVey’s new trial would go forward Thursday.
McVey, who is being held on $1 million bail at the Men’s Central Jail in Los Angeles, also faces a gun charge. He was originally tried in October, which resulted in a hung jury, Lindars said.
McVey admitted at the trial that he shot Miller after taking the drug, and he is expected to testify the same way in front of a new jury, his lawyer said. Deputy District Attorney Michael Dean is handling the case.
Ecstasy, or MDMA, produces both amphetamine-like stimulation and mild mescaline-like hallucinations, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.
“Most people think Ecstasy is a party drug that heightens a person’s emotions,” Lindars said. “That is true. But if a person is anxious or fearful, this can heighten that as well.”
Lindars, who said “there was a whole sequence of events that took place in a matter of 15 minutes,” said his client was anxious and fearful because while under the influence of the drug, McVey and Kronholm attempted to purchase additional drugs and were sold sugar.
“They returned down to the area where they were sold the bogus stuff,” and that is where McVey broke the window of a vehicle that he thought belonged to the drug dealers, “even though [the vehicle] was the wrong color and type,” his LA attorney said.
The incident was caught on surveillance cameras in the area. The homeless man was nearby, and “asked [McVey] for money,” Lindars said. “He shot the homeless man in the leg.”
Lindars added later that, “There was a total of seven shots — four or five in the leg and the others were in the hip. He was standing only about 4 feet away and didn’t shoot him in the head.”
“If anything, it was manslaughter. He did not have the intent,” McVey’s attorney said. “He was under the influence. Our position is absent of that, he wouldn’t have acted the way he did.”
Miller was shot multiple times at about 11:55 p.m. Jan. 4, 2015, and was taken to an area hospital, where he later died of his wounds, according to a news release from the Los Angeles Police Department issued the day after the shooting. The shooting was witnessed by an off-duty Los Angeles Police Department officer, who helped to lead police to McVey and Kronholm, who ran from the scene.
Investigators say McVey was the attacker, possibly in a drug deal gone wrong, Los Angeles police Detective Mark Morgan said at McVey’s plea hearing last year at which he pleaded not guilty. Risling said he could not comment about the prosecution’s case against McVey.
“The DA thinks Mr. McVey is a callous drug dealer and he shot the guy because he mistook him for the guys who sold him the bogus drugs,” Lindars said.
McVey’s attorney said he is arguing for manslaughter, which carries a penalty of up to 21 years in prison. McVey faces a sentence of 25 years to life in prison, if found guilty of murder.
“I’m really disappointed that Mr. Kronholm didn’t stick around to testify on Mr. McVey’s behalf,” Lindars said.
Kronholm is scheduled to testify in the California court on Friday, he said, adding since Kronholm returned to Greenville, “I don’t expect he’s going to show up.”
Messages left for Kronholm and for McVey’s family were not returned.
The two Greenville High School graduates moved together from Maine to California in the fall of 2014. McVey, a former Maine Maritime Academy student, was enrolled for a time at the California Maritime Academy.
“He had never been in any real trouble before,” Lindars said of McVey.
McVey has minor convictions in Maine for refusing to submit to arrest or detention, transporting liquor by a minor, violating conditions of release and operating a vehicle with a suspended or revoked driver’s license, all in 2011, according to BDN archives.