A 63-year-old Coast Guard civilian technician is scheduled to go on trial Monday in the shooting deaths of two co-workers nearly two years ago at a communications station on Kodiak Island.
James Michael Wells is charged with murder counts in the deaths of 51-year-old Richard Belisle and 41-year-old Petty Officer 1st Class James Hopkins of Vergennes, Vt.
Prosecutors say Wells claimed to have been delayed by a flat tire but that he used his wife’s sport utility vehicle to drive to the communications station and gun down his co-workers, with whom he had feuded.
Defense attorneys say the government case relies on surveillance video that is inconclusive. They say in a trial brief that prosecutors have no physical evidence linking Wells to the homicides.
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