Accused takes the stand in murder trial

Jul. 14—Despite what a fellow inmate told jurors, murder suspect Michael Shults insisted Thursday he never intended to kill his stepfather three years ago.

Shults, 40, is currently on trial in the 161st Ector County District Court, accused of stabbing Roy Eugene Reeves, 57, to death on Oct. 28, 2019.

Assistant Ector County District Attorneys Scott Turner and Rikki Earnest have presented evidence they believe shows Shults intentionally killed Reeves, including the testimony of a man who spent approximately a month in the Ector County jail with Shults. That man said Shults told him he'd killed Reeves in order to prevent him from reconciling with Shults' mother, Margaret.

Reeves was stabbed 17 times with a three-inch dull, serrated knife, jurors were told.

Taking the stand the day following his mother, Shults testified he met Reeves approximately one year after Reeves and his mother began dating. They married in 2006, six years after he graduated from high school.

At the time of the incident, Shults was living in a home on North Lincoln Avenue, just behind a house his mother bought when he was in high school.

Margaret Reeves testified Wednesday that she decided to file for divorce one month prior to her husband's death following his arrest for assaulting her. She'd taken out a protective order preventing Reeves from living in their home on Lincoln, but she'd chosen to move in with an elderly friend rather than return to the home, fearing Reeves would ignore the protective order.

Shults testified Thursday he lost his driver's license a few years before Reeves died because he suffered a seizure while driving. As a result, his mother would drive him to and from work at a custom cabinetry shop he continues to work at.

When he and his mother arrived home on Oct. 28, 2019, they discovered all of his motion detectors and cameras had been ripped off the side of his house. He immediately suspected Reeves because he'd caught Reeves on camera ripping a no trespassing sign down a couple of days earlier. Angry, he texted Reeves and told him the police were on the way because he intended to file a police report.

In explaining surveillance videos seized by police and shown to the jury, Shults told his attorney, Scott Layh, that he had taken to sleeping with his shotgun nearby because he feared Reeves would someday attack him. After arriving home that day, Shults said he moved his shotgun closer to the door after finding the cameras because he knew his mother was getting ready to leave and he'd be alone.

However, before his mother could leave, Shults said Reeves pulled into the driveway, blocking his mother in. He went outside at that point.

"Did you want to kill Roy because he ripped the cameras off your house?" Layh asked.

"No," Shults said.

"Did you want to kill Roy because he was abusive to your mom?" Layh asked.

"No," Shults said.

Shults told Layh he went outside just to tell Reeves to let his mother leave.

However, before he could reach them, Shults said Reeves had "got ahold" of his mother and was shaking her.

"I yelled 'Get your hands off of her' and I pulled him off of her. That's when he said 'I've been waiting for you to come out' and he swung on me," Shults said.

Shults testified Reeves hit him once or twice and they ended up wrestling in between Reeves' truck and his mother's car.

They broke apart momentarily and Reeves got him into a headlock and was choking him, Shults said. His mother tried to separate them, but got smashed up against the pickup truck. Eventually, she got away and he assumes that's when she ran across the street to have neighbors call 911.

"Roy told me 'You're going to die' and that's when I got my knife," Shults said.

Earlier, Shults testified he always carries around a knife at work to cut into tape, nylon cords and boxes.

Still in the headlock, Shults said he stabbed Reeves an unknown number of times in the leg before reaching higher and stabbing him some more.

Reeves let go of him at that time, Shults said.

"I remember him lifting up his shirt and saying 'You stabbed me (expletive)' and I said '(Expletive) you' and he came after me again," Shults said. "I was just fighting for my life."

After Reeves collapsed, Shults testified he went inside his house and called his sister, two close friends and his boss to tell them what had happened and that he'd be going to jail.

When police arrived, Shults said he walked out, said "It was me" and gave himself up.

Shults agreed jail records show he wasn't in jail in April 2020, when the jail inmate says he confessed to intentionally murdering Reeves. He also told Layh that the divorce was already "in the works" so he didn't have to do anything to keep Reeves away from his mother. He also rejected the idea that he and his mother wanted Reeves dead to maintain possession of her house. The house was purchased years before the marriage and therefore wasn't in danger of being lost to Reeves in the divorce.

Under cross-examination from Turner, Shults acknowledged his description of the altercation that day differs somewhat from his mother's. He also acknowledged that he was housed for a time with the jail inmate and they did have conversations. While he said the inmate may have been wrong about the dates, Shults continued to insist that he never talked about his case with the man.

While jurors have seen surveillance videos of Margaret Reeves running to a neighbor's house screaming for them to call 911, the motion detector cameras did not pick up Reeves' arrival at the house or the stabbing itself. The videos only show Reeves collapsing to the ground.

Closing arguments are set for this afternoon.

Retired Judge Tryon Lewis is presiding over the trial.