Witness: Defendant in trailer park night before

Morrow suffered 18 blows, 3 stabs

Homicide defendant pleads not guilty

“He killed his best friend.”

That’s what Chad Jamie Gulbertson told an Albert Lea police officer around noon at the Law Enforcement Center in Albert Lea with his father on the day Jody Lee Morrow died.

Testifying in court Tuesday at the Rice County Courthouse, officer Bob Etheridge explained the events that led officers to Morrow’s trailer June 21, 2009 — where they ultimately found her body — and the statements and demeanor Gulbertson and his father, Dennis Gulbertson, shared with police that day.

During testimony of Etheridge and the viewing of a 50-minute recorded interview between Gulbertson, his father and Etheridge, the defendant was depicted as a man who was sobbing intensely and who was “physically and emotionally shaken,” the officer testified.

Gulbertson’s head was down on the table a majority of the time, and at one point he asked Etheridge to arrest him.

Etheridge said he was on general patrol that day when he got a call from dispatchers to come to the Law Enforcement Center to speak with a man in the lobby.

When he arrived, he found Gulbertson and a man who was later identified as Gulbertson’s father.

“They were hanging on to each other,” Etheridge said. “They were both crying.”

The three men first went into a small conference room off of the lobby.

There, Etheridge testified, Gulbertson walked to the far corner, extended his hands up in the air and asked him to handcuff him.

He was sobbing.

The officer asked Gulbertson’s father what was going on, and after he gave a response, Etheridge stepped out to request a welfare check — police jargon for a visit — at Morrow’s trailer, he said.

After hearing on his radio that another officer responded to the trailer but was unable to open any of the doors, Etheridge went back in the room and asked Gulbertson if he had a key.

Gulbertson told him he did not and that Morrow had let him into the trailer, he said.

Etheridge instructed the officer at the trailer to use force if necessary to gain entry to the residence.

Shortly after, Gulbertson, his father and Etheridge moved to a second conference room next to the detective’s work area, which is video and audio recorded.

There, Etheridge read Gulbertson his Miranda rights and told him he was going to ask some questions. He did not inform him he was being recorded.

There, over the next 50 minutes, Gulbertson sobbed, letting out several inaudible phrases and only a handful of audible ones.

“Most of that time in the room was Chad breaking down,” Etheridge said. “Chad was really broken up. He was crying and sobbing.”

Several times, Gulbertson’s father questioned whether they should have a lawyer present, and the father and son continuously asked Etheridge whether officers had found out anything about Morrow.

Between sobs, Gulbertson told Etheridge he had gone over to Morrow’s trailer on a bike around 1 a.m. He and Morrow talked outside for a while and then got into an argument inside, where everything “went wrong,” he said.

At one point, he said, Morrow had grabbed a knife.

He fell back by the computer, where he grabbed a hammer.

He only remembered bits and pieces.

Dennis Gulbertson said after 6 o’clock that morning, he received a call from his son, who asked him to come and get him from a friend’s house he was staying at on Euclid Avenue in Albert Lea.

The father did so, and then drove he and his son to Alden where he lived.

Dennis Gulbertson said he laid down for a couple hours, and then when he woke up his son was crying.

He said, “He’d done the stupidest thing.”

They both started crying, and the father told his son that he needed to turn himself in, Dennis Gulbertson told Etheridge.

Chad Gulbertson agreed.

The video ends as Etheridge is taking Chad Gulbertson out of the conference room to go to the restroom.

Etheridge said after this, detective Ben Mortensen arrived to serve a search warrant on Gulbertson for his clothing and to collect blood and urine samples.

Etheridge transported him to the Albert Lea Medical Center. Gulbertson complained of his left hand hurting him but never complained of any other injuries.

He told Etheridge he fell on his hand. The doctor ultimately put a splint on Gulbertson’s pinkie finger for a cracked knuckle. Etheridge said he had not seen Gulbertson do anything that day to cause injury to his hand.

Prosecutors also showed pictures of Gulbertson’s hands that were taken at the Law Enforcement Center, but those photos did not indicate any injury. Gulbertson was also seen leaning on his left hand, which would have been painful with an injury, medical examiner Lindsey Thomas testified Monday.

The officer said during his time with Gulbertson, he did not notice the smell of alcohol or see the signs of intoxication by drugs.

Gulbertson’s clothes were seized and he changed into a jail jumpsuit.

When cross-examined by Gulbertson’s lawyer Kevin Riha, Etheridge said it was his understanding that Morrow had let Gulbertson into the trailer.

The officer said he had been inside the trailer before and that he had talked with Gulbertson before.

On two or three occasions, Etheridge testified Gulbertson told him “he killed his best friend.”

After Etheridge’s testimony, Mortensen testified that search warrants were ultimately conducted at Morrow’s trailer, at 730 Larimore Circle; the residence at 422 Euclid Ave., where Gulbertson was picked up by his father; the red Buick Skylark that Dennis Gulbertson picked his son up in; the residence of Dennis Gulbertson in Alden; and Gulbertson’s person himself.

During an investigative search of the trailer June 23, 2009, items including at least five knives, a ball peen hammer, a calendar, a telephone, glasses, a mail holder, Morrow’s wheelchair and Morrow’s walker were taken from the house.

Each of those items was presented in court Tuesday, the most notable Morrow’s wheelchair, seen through a large glass box. Dried blood appeared on the wheelchair.

Prosecutors also showed a picture of the width of Morrow’s hallway, showing that the woman’s wheelchair was too wide to go down the hallway of her trailer and that to get down the hallway she had to use her walker.

The woman’s right leg was amputated below the knee, and she had two toes on her left foot also removed.

Other pictures of the interior of the trailer were also shown, which revealed that the trailer was difficult to move around in because of many boxes and other items.

Gulbertson faces five counts of murder, including three first-degree murder charges and two second-degree murder charges, in the death of Morrow.

He is accused of stabbing Morrow in the neck and bludgeoning her to death with a hammer.