Friday, Jun. 13, 2008

Couple describe condition of rancher at murder trial

A Ceres schoolteacher who testified Thursday during a murder trial in Stanislaus County Superior Court said she and her husband began making daily trips to Hickman to care for an elderly friend because they were not convinced that former pastor Howard "Doug" Porter was getting the job done.

Michelle Pittman said she became alarmed the moment she saw rancher Frank Craig lying on a lounge chair on his lawn. Craig had been crippled six or eight months earlier, when a truck driven by Porter slammed into a tree, and he had been home from a rehabilitation hospital for only one day.

The 85-year-old wore diapers, depended on a catheter and could not walk or even lift himself out of bed. Yet he had been left outside alone.

"When my husband and I arrived, Mr. Craig was out, laying in a lounge chair, and he was wearing shorts and his legs were severely sunburned because he was put out into the sun all day the day before," Pittman recalled. "It was severe enough that he should have gone to the hospital. It was blistered."

More than five years later, the country preacher is suspected of embezzling $1.1 million the rancher wanted to use to build an agricultural museum, then staging two truck accidents, in 2002 and 2004, to cover his tracks. The second wreck proved fatal.

Porter, 57, of La Grange has pleaded not guilty to murder, attempted murder, embezzlement from an elder by a caretaker and elder abuse causing death. He has been held without bail since his arrest Nov. 27, 2006, and faces life in prison if convicted.

The Pittmans, who met Craig in 1983 when they worked together in a manure-spreading business, insist that their friend was on the mend and were suspicious of Porter in the months before Craig's death.

During back-to-back stints on the witness stand, they told the jury about an opinionated man who pinched pennies because he grew up during the Depression, believed in doing business with a handshake and loved to collect antiques, which he referred to as his "treasures."

Before the crippling crash, Tim and Michelle Pittman saw Craig a few times a year and brought him to their annual Fourth of July celebration.

Once they saw Craig's sunburned body, the couple stepped up their visitation schedule because they had little faith in a man from Mexico who was paid to care for Craig and who attended Bible study classes at Hickman Community Church, where Porter was pastor for nearly two decades.

Craig and Porter struck up a business relationship in 1999, when Craig inherited $2 million from a brother and believed an agricultural museum he had dreamed of for years could become a reality. He made the church his beneficiary and the preacher the executor of his estate.

Although Porter had control of Craig's finances and health care decisions, it was the Pittmans who brought in a mechanical bed and wheelchair, bathed Craig and fashioned a special rolling chair so Craig could use the toilet.

Craig's cluttered house had been rearranged while he was in the hospital, with stacks of stuff piled on Craig's bed. The Pittmans were concerned because some things were missing, including a grandfather clock that Craig's brother made, in which Craig was known to store up to $5,000 in cash.

It was the Pittmans who searched for belongings Craig couldn't find, such as a microwave oven that had been taken from the kitchen and stored in a barn.

In the first few weeks after Craig came home from the hospital, parishioners from Porter's church brought lunches, but they tapered off, leaving it up to the Mexican student, who allegedly had a drinking problem, to prepare meals.