Two brothers from Kansas said they separately heard Mark DeSimone admit to shooting Tony Rosales.
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KTOO Courts Reporter Matt Miller will tweet during the trial of Mark DeSimone. Follow him at @ktoomatt.
The first witnesses took the stand Monday in the homicide trial underway in Juneau Superior Court.
DeSimone is accused of shooting Rosales in Excursion Inlet in May 2016.
One of the brothers, Seth Bradshaw, came up to do some hunting, fishing and crabbing at William Young’s two cabins in Excursion Inlet. Young’s employees Rosales and DeSimone also went out about the same time.
Bradshaw testified he was checking on a generator near the back of a cabin when he heard two back-to-back gun shots from near the front deck.
Inside the cabin, DeSimone walked toward the back as Bradshaw went to the front.
“I passed him and I said ‘What happened? What happened?’ ‘Cause as I’m passing him, I see Tony laying on the deck, face down, with blood out, blood in front of him,” Bradshaw said. “I asked him what happened and he said ‘I shot him. It’s all my fault. I shot him.’”
Seth’s brother, Samuel, testified that he was bear hunting some distance away from the cabin when he heard the two shots, one right after the other.
He then heard his brother calling for him to come back to the cabin.
Sam Bradshaw is bear hunting when he hears 2 shots and then his brother call for him to come back to cabins. He passes Mark #DeSimone on trail who mumbles ‘I was screwing around. I shot Tony.’
— Matt Miller (@KTOOMatt) April 30, 2018
Heading back, Samuel Bradshaw passed DeSimone walking slowly in the opposite direction and heard him mumble something.
“I asked him ‘Well, what’s going on, Mark?’” Bradshaw testified. “He said, ‘I was screwing around. I shot Tony.’”
He quickly clarified that DeSimone’s utterance actually included an expletive.
Both brothers testified that DeSimone eventually came back to the cabin. They and the rest of the hunting party kept watch on him until Alaska State Troopers arrived.
Rosales’ widow, Maria Gonzalez, and William Young also testified Monday.
In addition to the cabins in Excursion Inlet, Young also owned The Jewel Box store in downtown Juneau. Rosales started working there as a jeweler in 2012.
Young said he considered Rosales like a son and contemplated turning the store over to him.
Young recalled starting as an employee of The Jewel Box in the early 1980s when he first met DeSimone.
Sam Bradshaw is bear hunting when he hears 2 shots and then his brother call for him to come back to cabins. He passes Mark #DeSimone on trail who mumbles ‘I was screwing around. I shot Tony.’
— Matt Miller (@KTOOMatt) April 30, 2018
In May 2016, DeSimone came back to Juneau looking for work and did some day labor for Young just before the hunting trip.
Young also testified he owned the weapon used to shoot Rosales.
Young loaned the .41 double-action revolver to another member of the out-of-state party because he didn’t want to deal with the hassle of bringing firearms aboard flights to Alaska.
