McHenry County jury gets Smith murder case

McHenry County prosecutors repeatedly pointed to Kenneth Smith and called him "murderer" today during closing arguments in Smith's retrial on charges he killed Lakemoor businessman Raul Briseno during a botched robbery seven years ago.

Jurors began deliberations on the case shortly after 12:30 p.m. today, weighing whether they could convict the 32-year-old Park City man of first-degree murder based largely on the word of a co-defendant who has lied repeatedly and recanted claims that he and Smith killed Briseno.

Prosecutors told jurors today that Smith, then 25, was the leader of a crew of teenagers who set out March 6, 2001, to rob Briseno's Burrito Express in McHenry. When Smith, armed with a pistol, and co-defendant Justin Houghtaling entered the restaurant and demanded money, authorities said, Briseno grabbed a knife and chased the two would-be robbers out of the business and into the parking lot.

Briseno eventually caught Houghtaling and was dragging him back toward the restaurant, prosecutors said, when Smith shot and killed the 35-year-old business owner.

"This guy right here irrevocably changed so many lives when he chose to arm himself that night," Assistant McHenry County State's Attorney Michael Combs said, pointing to Smith. "Raul Briseno had too much pride to give in to a couple of punks and he chased them out, and he paid for it with his life."

Defense lawyers hammered home the lack of physical evidence linking Smith to the murder, noting that even the coat police say Houghtaling was wearing when Briseno was shot in his arms had no blood on it. Houghtaling even wore the jacket into the McHenry Police Department the next day to be questioned by detectives.

"The suggestion that no blood transferred onto that jacket and Mr. Houghtaling was so confident that no blood transferred onto it that he wore it into the police station is totally incredible," Smith attorney David Jimenez-Ekman said.

At the center of both sides' case was Houghtaling, a 26-year-old former Round Lake man who pleaded guilty to Briseno's murder in 2001 and got the minimum 20-year-sentence in exchange for his testimony against Smith and other co-defendants.

When called to testify last week, Houghtaling initially told jurors that he and Smith were responsible for the murder. But then when questioned by a defense lawyer, Houghtaling said he made up his earlier testimony at the insistence of prosecutors and told jurors he and the Smith had nothing to do with the murder.

"The man, as I think we all saw, is crazy," Jimenez-Ekman said. "That's the crux of the state's case and there's nothing there."

Prosecutors, however, said Houghtaling could be believed when he first confessed to the murder in May 2001 after police arrested him in Omaha, Neb.

"He had no motivation to implicate himself in the crime, yet he gave specific details," Assistant McHenry County State's Attorney Philip Hiscock said. "Justin Houghtaling was there. The defendant was there."