Jury hears eyewitness accounts of deadly shooting

KEITH KINNAIRD

News editor

SANDPOINT — Eyewitnesses gave jurors conflicting accounts Thursday of the moments leading up to the deadly shooting of Elvin “Eli” Holt last year in Sagle.

The testimony came on the third day of James Matthew Anderson’s second-degree murder trial in 1st District Court.

The eyewitnesses, Anderson’s wife, Leanne, and Holt’s stepbrother, Ian James Freir, both told jurors of a pleasant day celebrating Thanksgiving with their respective friends and family which unexpectedly and violently ended with a gunshot fired from James Anderson’s .44-caliber magnum revolver.

By the end of the night of Nov. 27, 2008, Holt, 30, was dead from a bullet wound to the head, James Anderson, 29, was arrested on suspicion of murder and two families were awash in grief.

But accounts of the moments leading up to the peal of gunfire continue to clash.

Leanne Anderson told jurors of a day preparing a traditional Thanksgiving feast for her husband, their two sons, and a couple of guests. Freir recalled for jurors a large family get-together at the Sagle Grange Hall.

The uneventful holiday took a disturbing turn at 10:56 p.m.

Leanne Anderson testified that she heard a knock at the door as she sat in bedroom with her husband and their 7-year-old son, who was watching a Disney video. She told jurors James answered the door of their trailer at the Travel America park.

When he did not return, Leanne said she went to investigate and discovered her husband talking with an increasingly agitated Holt, whom she did not know.

By all accounts, Holt and Freir went to the couple’s trailer to question James Anderson about his involvement in a battery on Holt’s best friend the previous month. Freir told jurors he was unaware of what they were doing at the trailer until they rolled up to it.

Freir testified that he waited in his truck while Holt confronted Anderson at the covered front porch. He insisted that Holt never laid a hand on Anderson, although his stepbrother’s voice was raised.

Leanne Anderson, however, testified that when she looked outside she saw Holt and Freir seizing her husband and threatening to “jack him up.”

“The two of them were pushing him against the truck,” Leanne Anderson said, describing how her husband was pinned against the vehicle.

Freir refuted that claim and said he exited the truck once Leanne Anderson came outside and began arguing with Holt. He said he got out in an attempt to break up the dispute and convince his stepbrother to leave.

“I went to Leanne, touched her arm and tried to apologize,” he told the jury.

James Anderson, meanwhile, made his way back into the trailer and retrieved a Ruger Super Blackhawk revolver and returned outside with the weapon cocked.

Both Leanne Anderson and Freir emotionally recounted the moment the gun discharged and fatally wounded Holt.

“I don’t remember a lot that happened after that,” she tearfully testified.

The state moved Friday to impeach Leanne Anderson’s credibility by pointing out that she initially told a Bonner County Sheriff’s investigator that she did not see the men grab her husband or feel threatened during the confrontation.

Partially redacted audio recordings of James Anderson’s interview with Bonner County Sheriff’s Det. Howard Burke were played for the jury on Friday. Initially, he told the veteran detective that Holt and Freir threatened his life and those of his family, and that he was assaulted by the two.

But Burke said James Anderson later recanted part of the story, indicating that the physical altercation was a fabrication but the threats were real. Burke testified that the defendant obtained the pistol to convince the two men to leave when it suddenly discharged.

“I asked if there was any reason to shoot this man and he said, ‘No. None at all,’” Burke quoted Anderson saying.

The trial resumes Monday, when the defense is expected to begin presenting its case to the jury.