Kevin McGregor will be tried in Boulder County on charges that he shot and killed University of New Hampshire football player Todd Walker in March as he walked home with a friend on University Hill, District Judge D.D. Mallard ruled Tuesday.
McGregor’s defense attorneys had asked for the trial to be moved because of media coverage surrounding the case. McGregor has been charged with first-degree murder, felony murder and aggravated robbery.
During a motions hearing in the case, Mallard denied the request for change of venue and said concerns about media coverage can be addressed during jury selection.
Defense attorneys also want Mallard to throw out McGregor’s alleged confession; the evidence from a police search of McGregor’s employer, Which Wich sandwich shop on University Hill, where police say they found a handgun; and an uncertain identification of McGregor by Elizabeth Roach, the friend who was with Walker when the confrontation occurred.
According to police and prosecutors, McGregor tried to rob Walker and Roach as the two walked home from a party on the Hill early in the morning of March 18. McGregor pointed a gun at Roach, Walker intervened and McGregor shot Walker, police allege. Walker, a native of Edwards, was visiting friends in Boulder that night.
McGregor told police that he made suggestive comments to Roach, and Walker got upset and swung at him. According to court records, McGregor told police he pulled a gun and shot it in the air and that Walker then pulled his arm down. The gun went off when it was pointed at Walker’s chest, but McGregor told detectives he didn’t remember pulling the trigger.
Boulder police Detective Chuck Heidel testified in the motions hearing that police identified McGregor as a suspect based on tips from his co-workers, who recognized him from a composite sketch prepared from Roach’s description.
When police showed Roach a photo lineup that included McGregor, she said he was “the closest” to the man who shot Walker, Heidel said. When asked how certain she was on a scale of 1 to 10, Roach said 6 or 7.
However, she also checked the “did not identify suspect” box on the form that goes with the photo lineup, Heidel said.
Prosecutors also played a recording of a jail phone conversation in which McGregor’s father asked whether he was threatened into confessing.
“No,” McGregor said emphatically. “They found it, and they had witnesses to identify me.”
Mallard also heard arguments about not letting jurors hear information about McGregor’s prior convictions.
McGregor was convicted of second-degree assault in relation to a 2008 incident in which McGregor and two friends allegedly robbed a man in south Boulder and used a stun gun on him and stabbed him in the head.
McGregor claimed he only hit the man to protect his friends.
