July 26, 2000
A murder suspect tearfully testified Tuesday that he was terrified when he fatally shot two Wal-Mart employees.
Michael Gherman, 44, described the tense confrontation at a lonely Gilbert intersection Oct. 11, 1998, saying he shot Robert Poduch and Hans Hummel after Poduch grabbed his gun.
"I was grabbed by the driver," Gherman said, referring to Poduch, who had chased him for 10 miles from an east Mesa Wal-Mart store. "I tried to pull my hand out of his hand. After that, I just blacked out."
Gherman also testified that when he saw Hummel reach toward something on the dashboard of a car, he thought it was a gun.
Police found Hummel, 17, and Poduch, 32, unarmed. Defense attorney David Michael Cantor suggested Hummel might have reached for a walkie-talkie.
"It looked like a gun to me," Gherman said.
Gherman, saying he was hemmed in by the Wal-Mart employees at Recker and Elliot roads, testified that Poduch got out of his car and confronted him with an obscenity.
"He was pointing his finger at me and he was saying things," Gherman said. "He said, 'I'm going to get you."'
The two victims chased Gherman because they suspected he had attempted to steal a television set.
But Gherman and his wife, Melodye, testified that they never intended to steal anything.
Gherman was detained in a security office briefly, then ran away, triggering a pursuit that violated Wal-Mart policy.
"I had this feeling I was going to get my wife and she was going to straighten things out. It was just a big misunderstanding," Gherman said.
A security officer already had detained Melodye in the parking lot, accusing her and her husband of attempting to steal the TV.
Gherman, a Chandler machinist, is accused of two counts of first-degree murder. The trial in Maricopa County Superior Court recessed before Prosecutor Vince Imbordino began his cross-examination.
Judge Robert Oberbillig said jurors probably will begin deliberations today.
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