Judge denies accused killers request

PANAMA CITY A Bay County circuit judge will allow jurors to view a taped murder confession in connection with an August 2010 fatal shooting at a Panama City Beach church construction site, according to court records.

The trial of Christopher Ray Hyler, 50, for the shooting death of his former landlord, 43-year-old Robert S. Ellison, is scheduled to begin Monday. As the trial looms, Hylers attorney requested the judge not allow a taped confession from his arrest to be admitted as evidence, arguing police coerced his testimony after only briefly reviewing his Miranda rights. However, Circuit Court Judge Brantley Clark denied the defenses motion to suppress the video, and jurors will have the opportunity to weigh it among other evidence, Clark wrote in his ruling Tuesday.

Hyler validly waived his Miranda rights, and, based on the totality of the circumstances, (Hyler) appears to have voluntarily issued his confession, Clark said.

Ellisons death lingered without an arrest for nearly three years, and, in May 2013, authorities received a confession from Hyler during a taped interrogation. But his legal counsel argued that after two hours of intense questioning, he simply agreed to the facts presented by interrogators.

Hyler had used methamphetamine heavily prior to his arrest by law enforcement and was still under the influence of the drug during the interrogation, defense attorney Henry Sims wrote in his motion to the court.

Sims said Hylers intoxication, coupled with a reasonable self-defense scenario presented by law enforcement to escape the pressure being asserted on him, amounted to coercion.

Sims also argued Hyler did not have privileged knowledge of the crime, and parts of the confession did not jive with the physical evidence or the sparse witness accounts from around the time of the shooting.

He did not provide any details of the crime nor did he divulge facts only the perpetrator would know, Sims wrote.

Investigators confronted Hyler with a variety of scenarios until more than an hour into questioning, when he finally nodded in agreement. Police presented Hyler with the scenario that he confronted an abusive husband and pulled the gun out of self-defense. Hyler continued from there.

He told me that I needed to mind my business and came out from behind the desk. He looked pissed, Hyler told investigators. I pulled (the 9mm), thinking hed back up. He got his hand on it once.

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Judge denies accused killers request