Trial set for suspect in last year's double murder

A trial date has been set for a key suspect in last year's murder of Gerald Sirucek and Catherine Madplume.

Jury selection in the trial of Jeremiah Green will begin May 8. He faces two felony charges of deliberate homicide by accountability and tampering with evidence.

According to court documents, Green provided the .22 caliber pistol used to shoot Sirucek and Madplume on Feb. 3, 2005 at a house on Eagle Pass Trail. He is facing the accountability charge for allegedly urging fellow defendant Troy Allen McDonald to do the shooting. McDonald confessed to pulling the trigger both times, according to court documents, but has undergone testing to see if his pyschological profile could be an element in his defense.

Court documents say that Green stole the pistol a couple of weeks before the murders, and tried to get a friend to assualt Sirucek. The motive eventually was some student loan money Sirucek had at the time of the murder. The charges of tampering with evidence stem from Green allegedly helping to conceal Sirucek's body.

Investigators with the Lake County Sheriff's office say Green walked into Tribal police headquarters that morning, saying he was being harrassed by McDonald and another man later arrested at the scene, Glen Gardipee. Green allegedly told Tribal officers and Sheriff's deputies that McDonald and Gardipee threatened to kill him if he told anyone about the murders.

Detectives with the Sheriff's office later came to doubt Green's story, and instead have said that he initiated the plot to kill Sirucek. They say the trio planned to get Sirucek drunk and then take his money. Madplume, who was also at the house that evening, was killed after she went looking for Sirucek, who had been shot in the back of a Jeep.

Gardipee reached a plea agreement with the county attorney's office last year, in which he agreed to testify at Green's trial. As part of the plea agreement, he will be sentenced on a charge of evidence tampering after his testimony is given at Green's trial.

Complicating the situation is the fact that, since his release, Gardipee has led investigators to believe he might not be as cooperative as they had hoped. During a court hearing last August, Sheriff's detective Jay Doyle acknowledged on the witness stand that Gardipee had recanted some of his earlier statements when questioned later by Nistler in a deposition.

Green is now being represented by Thomas Kragh. Green could face the death penalty for both deliberate homicide charges, although the county attorney's office has indicated they probably won't seek the death penalty. Green faces up to 10 years in jail on the evidence tampering charge.