Witness says he helped defendant load ex-cop’s body

Lee Sherard had only recently met Michael Williams when Williams seemed upset about having to bury a dog.

Sherard testified Wednesday that he decided to help with the burial. But after going to Williams’ rental home on South Waco, Sherard could see that whatever was under a tarp in the dining room was no dog.

“It was a lot bigger than a dog. … I think I seen a foot at that point, so I knew it wasn’t a dog,” Sherard testified in Sedgwick County District Court in the second day of testimony in Williams’ trial.

Prosecutors say Williams, 38, committed first-degree murder in December 2010 when he shot his roommate – ex-cop Sean “Chris” Putnam – and buried the body behind a shed in the Oaklawn neighborhood. Williams’ attorney has told jurors that although Williams shot Putnam, it happened during a tense moment and was not premeditated first-degree murder.

This is what happened, Sherard testified: Williams said that the man in the tarp had been shot. At the time, Sherard was an intoxicated ex-con, stuck in a bad situation. They talked about taking the body, wrapped into the tarp with duct tape, to a construction site.

That night, “I picked up the feet. He picked up the head, and we put it in the back of the truck.”

Eventually, they drove to Sherard’s mother’s home in Oaklawn. Sherard feared that Williams would shoot him if he didn’t help. “I didn’t want to be next,” he said.

Sherard helped lift the body out of the truck and went into his mother’s house, where he stayed.

“I kind of wish I wasn’t so intoxicated that night; I probably would have done things different,” he said.

He took a shower, smoked a cigarette, went to bed. The next morning, behind a shed at the Oaklawn house, he saw a mound of dirt and part of the tarp sticking up.

Later, Williams decided the body needed to be buried deeper, and Sherard said he didn’t want to be involved anymore, Sherard testified.

Williams explained that he had fought with Putnam, that it was over Williams walking in and seeing Deborah Weiss, the woman Williams lived with, crying. She was supposedly upset with Putnam.

“And that’s when he shot him,” Sherard said.

A key part of Williams’ defense is his attorney’s opening statement to jurors: that Williams woke up to Weiss’ scream, saw her break away from Putnam and shot Putnam without planning to do it.

In other testimony Wednesday, Wichita police Detective Chad Beard said Williams told him he didn’t trust Putnam and that Williams said Putnam said he had killed three people.

Putnam, 41, was a former law enforcement officer, in southeastern Kansas and Bel Aire.

Authorities say Putnam was killed in December 2010 in the house Williams rented on South Waco. Investigators recovered Putnam’s body from the shallow grave in February 2011.

DNA testing found Putnam’s blood had seeped into flooring at the Waco home.

Behind the home in Oaklawn, investigators removed a layer of snow and carefully excavated. About 7 inches down, they found a human heel. Eventually, they uncovered Putnam’s nude body face-down, with the deepest part of the grave only 16 inches deep.

Not long before authorities think Putnam died, Wichita police Officer Greg Murray and another officer responded to a 911 call, on Dec. 21, 2010, about a problem at the Waco house.

Murray testified that Williams said Putnam was acting strangely and that Williams wanted Putnam out of the home. The officers found Putnam lying in a bedroom and looking intoxicated or as if he was “coming down from a high,” Murray said. They had to yell to wake up Putnam.

Williams asked the officers to leave if they couldn’t remove Putnam. Williams said he and Weiss would leave because they didn’t want to stay in the same home with Putnam, Murray said. The officers left because there was no sign of a physical conflict.

Putnam’s body, which had been somewhat preserved in the frigid ground, tested positive for methamphetamine, an illegal stimulant that can cause paranoia or aggression.

The autopsy showed he suffered a gunshot wound to his forehead, and the bullet exited at the back of his skull. He also had marks on his neck that could be consistent with a bungee cord being put around his neck, according to testimony.

A bungee cord came up in testimony from Edward Woods, who had worked with Williams at a guttering business. Woods said that Weiss, the woman Williams lived with, came to his house one morning. She was upset. She was drinking whiskey and beer. She said she was feeling guilty and couldn’t handle the stress, that she had witnessed an argument between Williams and Putnam and saw Williams shoot Putnam. “She said it was over a drug deal,” said Woods, who went to police about what he heard.

Weiss told Woods that Williams shot Putnam in the head and that she got a trash bag and bungee cord and put it around him as he gurgled blood, Woods testified.

Weiss, who had been charged with murdering Putnam, has pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter.

She could be called to testify today.

This story was originally published March 7, 2012 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Witness says he helped defendant load ex-cop’s body."