D.C. Man Tells Court What Drove Him to Kill Landscaper

About 11 a.m. Oct. 16, 2006, Lankward Harrington was walking to a grocery store in the 2600 block of Martin Luther King Avenue SE in Anacostia when he came upon Jose Villatoro, who was cutting grass at an apartment complex.

Prosecutors said Harrington had spent the previous night smoking PCP, and he was angry. He was angry that after an argument, his father had ordered him out of their apartment. He was angry because he suspected that his girlfriend was cheating on him.

As he approached Villatoro, 35, who was using a line trimmer to edge a lawn, Harrington grew angrier when Villatoro did not pause to allow him to pass. Instead, Villatoro kept working and grass hit Harrington's clothes and hair. Harrington stopped, reached into his backpack, pulled out a .357 magnum and shot Villatoro four times in the face and body before walking away.

"I made sure he saw me and looked me in the eye," Harrington, 25, calmly told a shocked audience in D.C. Superior Court on Monday, the first time anyone had heard a motive in the killing. "I take pride in my appearance. I did not appreciate that."

A stunned Assistant U.S. Attorney Steve Snyder sought clarification from Harrington. "He did nothing to you, did he?" Snyder said.

"He got grass on me," Harrington said quietly. "That was something."

Harrington, of Southeast Washington, was charged with second-degree murder in Villatoro's killing. After closing arguments Tuesday, it took the jury less than 10 minutes to return a guilty verdict.

It was Harrington's second murder trial in the case. Last year, a D.C. jury found Harrington not guilty of first-degree murder and hung on a charge of second-degree murder. Harrington had pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

This year, after follow-up meetings with Harrington in preparation for the trial, two of the three D.C. area psychologists who last year testified that Harrington was insane changed their diagnoses and said that he was not insane at the time of the shooting.

As a result, Harrington rejected an insanity defense, said his attorney, Billy Ponds, leaving Ponds to argue that the three witnesses on a Metrobus at Martin Luther King and Pomeroy Road SE when the shooting occurred misidentified Harrington.

But that defense collapsed when Harrington, against Ponds's advice, told Judge Geoffrey M. Alprin that he wanted to take the stand. Ponds later called his client's testimony "chilling" and "remarkable," but he added that Harrington still "deserved a fair trial" and reminded jurors to be fair before they began their deliberations.

During closing arguments, Harrington often smiled as Assistant U.S. Attorney Mike Ambrosino reminded the jury of Harrington's testimony and that Villatoro died after a four-second encounter.

"You never heard him say 'I'm sorry.' That's because he's not sorry. He's proud of what he did. Proud of killing an innocent man," Ambrosino said.

Harrington's father, Darryl Harrington, who attended much of the trial, called the case a "miscarriage of justice" and said that his son has psychiatric issues.

Harrington's casual account of the shooting amazed veteran prosecutors, court clerks and defense lawyers. "I've never heard anything that even came close to that in my 20 years of prosecuting murder cases," Ambrosino said.

But Villatoro's wife, Carmela, never flinched as Harrington spoke of shooting her husband and the father of their two daughters, ages 10 and 5. What did surprise her, she said, was that it took three years for a jury to find Harrington guilty. The Villatoros immigrated to the Mount Pleasant area from El Salvador in 1990. Since then, her husband had worked for landscaping companies.

"Knowing what [Harrington] did, I don't understand why it has taken so long," she said. "How could he do something like this only because of grass?"

Harrington is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 18.