Trial starts in Palmer for teen ‘catalyst’ behind Grunwald murder

PALMER — Prosecutors called Dominic Johnson the catalyst in the slaying of David Grunwald, the Palmer teen shot to death after a brutal pistol-whipping they say was Johnson’s idea.

Johnson, whose murder trial began here Monday, is the second of four teens accused of killing 16-year-old Grunwald in November 2016 to face a jury. Erick Almandinger was convicted in May of murder and kidnapping and faces sentencing next year. Two other teens at the time — Austin Barrett and Brad Renfro — have trials scheduled for next year.

Grunwald was bludgeoned with a pistol in a camper behind Almandinger’s Palmer home, then shot in the head and killed at a remote spot near the Knik River. His Ford Bronco was found, torched at the base of the Talkeetna Mountains the next day. Authorities didn’t find Grunwald’s body until Johnson led them to it more than two weeks after the murder.

The savage beating and execution-style killing by a group of sporadically homeless young people with access to stolen weapons galvanized public attention and revealed the dark side of teen life in Mat-Su.

Johnson’s trial began Monday in a Palmer courtroom with opening statements, which establish the evidence both sides expect to introduce.

Prosecutors framed the killing as carried out by a group of teens who identified with the Crips gang and ambushed Grunwald together that Sunday night in November 2016. Grunwald, who described smoking marijuana in messages to a friend that night, grew up in a military family and had ambitions to become a pilot.

“We will prove that Dominic Johnson and his buddies … as a closely knit group of wannabe gang members, destroyed David Grunwald’s life and irreparably damaged David Grunwald’s family,” Palmer District Attorney Roman Kalytiak said in his opening statement.

Johnson’s public defender urged the jury to look beyond the emotion surrounding the case.

“This is an emotional case. You’re going to hear some testimony, you’re going to see photos that you have an emotional response to, but you still need to listen closely to all the evidence in this case," Lyle Stohler said in a very brief opening statement Monday.

Johnson wore a white dress shirt, glasses and a new haircut Monday after several weeks of jury selection made complicated by the publicity of Almandinger’s trial, streamed via live video to tens of thousands of people around Alaska and the Lower 48.

Johnson got a tattoo of a gun on his right hand in jail, KTVA-11 reported last week. He could be seen wearing a black brace on that hand in court Monday, though he kept his hands concealed when the jury was in the room.

Kalytiak depicted Johnson as one of a group of teens who collectively decided to beat and then kill Grunwald. But he described Johnson as the one who decided to bludgeon Grunwald’s head with a heavy Ruger semi-automatic pistol.

Grunwald came by Almandinger’s to hang out with him and a friend — David Evans — whom Grunwald dropped off earlier in the day, prosecutors say. Evidence during the Almandinger trial depicted a ready supply of marijuana in the house.

Evans left, however, so instead Grunwald ended up with Johnson, Barrett and Renfro, Kalytiak said.

Almandinger told investigators the group was smoking marijuana in the trailer. He also told them during a lengthy interview in December 2016 that Johnson “just didn’t like” Grunwald and was angry that night because “he sat there and smoked all my weed."

Johnson asked Almandinger to bring his Ruger from the house to the camper, the prosecutor said, showing messages between the two. At one point, Johnson told Almandinger he had to “act fast” and that Almandinger wouldn’t “get involved" in whatever happened

The teens locked Grunwald in the tiny bathroom, then turned out the lights and beat him with the gun when they let him out, according to testimony during Almandinger’s trial.

Then they realized his injuries were too severe to let him live and “stuffed” him into his own Bronco to drive to the Knik, Kalytiak said Monday, showing an autopsy photo of several deep wounds in Grunwald’s scalp.

There isn’t enough evidence to establish who fired the fatal shot, he said.

Grunwald’s girlfriend, Victoria Mokelke, testified that she and Grunwald spent the last day of his life going to church, shopping at a consignment sale with Grunwald’s mom, studying and watching “Futurama” before having dinner at the Grunwald house. Grunwald drove Mokelke home that evening.

He mentioned he might go hang out “with the boys” — Almandinger and Evans — at Almandinger’s house, she said.

By 10 p.m., Grunwald’s mother, Edie, started calling and texting because the normally punctual teen hadn’t come home. Mokelke said she messaged with Almandinger — pleading with him for any information — and Evans, both of whom she knew slightly. She got nowhere.

She’d never met Johnson while Grunwald was alive.

“This is the first time I’ve ever seen Dominic Johnson in my life,” Mokelke said in court Monday.

The trial is expected to last several weeks.