Bellingham jurors begin deliberation in trial over 2021 fatal shooting
The trial of a Bellingham woman accused of fatally shooting a man in Coupeville and leaving his body on the Semiahmoo Spit in 2021 wrapped up in Whatcom County Superior Court on Thursday morning.
Lynda Clare Mercy, 67, was arrested April 13, 2021, and charged with second-degree murder for the killing of 67-year-old Thomas Flood, a transient man from Langley. Jurors will now deliberate the case following two and half weeks of testimony.
In his closing argument, Chief Deputy Prosecutor Erik Sigmar said Mercy took “deliberate action to snuff out human life.” He walked through how Mercy allegedly shot Flood twice and drove him up to Blaine in his white van before dropping his body by the Semiahmoo Spit, where he was found by two teens on April 7, 2021.
He showed photos of Flood’s body buried beneath a pile of sleeping bags, towels, a blanket and a mattress pad. He also replayed previously shown surveillance footage of Mercy with the van at a Bellingham gas station the day Flood’s body was discovered.
Senior Deputy Public Defender Shoshana Paige said in her closing argument that jurors needed to consider a lack of evidence in their deliberations. She said the state’s “theory” that Mercy killed Flood was “full of gaps,” and that law enforcement didn’t investigate other potential suspects besides Mercy.
“A possibility is not proof beyond a reasonable doubt,” Paige said.
She also pointed out that no blood evidence was found in a search of Mercy’s apartment, and there were no deformities in Flood’s van that indicated a shooting.
Second week of testimony
In the second week of Mercy’s trial, prosecutors brought additional law enforcement officers to testify about their involvement in the investigation. They said that DNA found on a white face mask near Flood’s body, a cigarette butt in the van and other parts of the van matched Mercy’s DNA.
Other witnesses included people who reported tips to police identifying Mercy as the person in surveillance video from the gas station with Flood’s van.
One individual was an employee at Whatcom Educational Credit Union in 2021. She said she knew Mercy as a regular visitor and recognized the hat that Mercy was wearing in the surveillance footage. The same hat was seen on video footage from a restaurant near the Coupeville ferry terminal around 1:25 a.m. April 7.
The WECU employee said Mercy visited the credit union April 7 while wearing more subdued clothing than usual. A video showed Mercy arriving with a blue walking stick, which was later found in Flood’s van. The van was also seen driving near WECU.
A crime lab forensic scientist also provided testimony. She said she examined the bullet found near where Flood usually parked his van overnight in Coupeville, and then test fired the gun that belonged to Mercy. She said the markings on the bullets after they were fired matched.
However, a statistician brought by the defense argued that the bullet-matching method used was a subjective process, and examiners looking at the same evidence often came to different conclusions.
The defense also called two retired police officers, one of whom applied for the geofence warrants that placed Flood’s phone in the Semiahmoo area and the church parking lot where his van and phone were later found. The officer said he was never asked to apply for warrants for other areas that may have also been involved in the investigation.
An expert witness for the defense testified that Flood’s death could have been a suicide or an accidental shooting. He also said that he wasn’t sure how a single person could have moved Flood’s body.
Mercy did not testify.
Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Sophia Padgett called into question the qualifications of the defense’s experts in her rebuttal to Paige’s closing argument, as well as the assertion that law enforcement didn’t look into all potential leads.
Padgett said there was an “overwhelming amount of incriminating evidence” collected by police, and that Mercy was the “common denominator.” She also referenced surveillance footage showing someone carrying a surfboard later found in Flood’s van, which Mercy identified herself during a phone call from jail.
“Tom’s life was a means for (Mercy) to get home,” Padgett said. “She threw him away like rubbish.”