Lawyer: Client Brought Body to Me in Pickup Truck

John Marshall showed up with man he killed in self-defense, Fla. attorney says
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 5, 2015 12:24 PM CST
Lawyer: Client Brought Body to Me in Pickup Truck
John Marshall's lawyer says his client showed up with the body in his truck (not the one shown here).   (Shutterstock)

In a scenario that seems better suited to an episode of Better Call Saul than a small law firm in southwest Florida, an attorney says one of his clients showed up at his office yesterday afternoon, said he had killed a neighbor, and revealed he had the body in his pickup truck outside, the AP reports. Lawyer Robert Harris says John Marshall, 52, arrived around 4pm with a missing tooth, a puffed-up lip, and "what looked like two broken thumbs," per the Florida News-Press; Marshall told Harris he had killed Ted Hubbell in self-defense after grabbing a gun away from him during a fight. "It's the cleanest-cut case of self-defense I've ever seen," Harris tells the newspaper. Marshall chose Harris as his confidante because he wasn't sure if he could trust anyone else, the News-Press adds. "They don't teach you about this in law school, that's for sure," Harris says.

But neighbors—and Marshall's arrest record—hint at strife. Even though Marshall hasn't yet been arrested, online records from the Lee County Sheriff's Office show that he was arrested in September for aggravated battery, and Harris admits the two men had been having a "property dispute," per the News-Press. And at least a couple of locals seem wary: Jill Hammer tells WINK News that the victim had confided in her that he was on edge around Marshall. "He said 'I think I have a lunatic for a neighbor'—I don't know if he used that word, but somebody very not right in the head," she says, adding that Hubbell "would never have started a confrontation, he would have turned and walked away." Another neighbor tells the station that Marshall "was always real standoffish every time I talked to him, he wasn't very warm or friendly." The Lee County Sheriff's Office told the News-Press last night it was still investigating the death and wouldn't confirm whether or not Marshall would be arrested. (More Florida stories.)

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