By Shayna Jacobs
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN SUPREME COURT — An ex-con who claims he was paid to kill a Long Island motivational speaker detailed for police how he held the knife steady while the desperate man repeatedly thrust his chest into the blade, testimony at a Thursday hearing revealed.
A homicide detective, who interviewed alleged killer Kenneth Minor, recounted the gruesome steps taken to end the life of Jeffrey Locker in his testimony at a pre-trial hearing for Minor on Thursday.
The 52-year-old suburban dad met Minor while canvassing a rough East Harlem neighborhood looking for a gun and asking neighborhood loiterers for a "Kevorkian," Minor told the detectives interviewing him. Locker led Minor to a spot on Paladino Avenue, near the Wagner Houses.
There he instructed Minor to get a knife and clean plastic gloves from the glove compartment, Minor told homicide detectives.
Then, Locker thrust himself into the blade "about four times," NYPD Detective Robert Stewart testified Minor said in the interview.
When that didn't work he told Minor, 38, to "move [the blade] over to the right side where his heart is," Minor told Stewart, the detective said on the witness stand Thursday.
"At that point the victim is still alive but breathing heavily," Stewart recalled of Minor's confession.
Defense lawyers at Thursday's hearing sought to suppress these confessions, as well as evidence from a police lineup.
Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Carol Berkman will rule on whether Minor's statement will be admissible at trial when the proceeding resumes next week. Jury selection in Minor's trial on a single second-degree murder charge is expected to begin Monday.
Both sides concede Locker may have been looking to die so his family could collect a large insurance payout. Prosecutors are expected to show evidence at Minor's trial next week pointing to the theory that Locker was in fact looking to die. But Minor's assistance in Lockers death still makes him a murderer under the law, they will likely argue.
Minor also told police that Locker spilled his sob story to him moments before his grisly death in his SUV near Harlem River Drive.
It was important to Locker that his death be believable as a robbery-murder, according to Minor.
"He had to make it look like a robbery so that his family could get what they deserved," Minor told Stewart and other investigators.
Authorities found Minor on video in several locations. They saw him discard a bloody white t-shirt in the garbage at a nearby laundromat. They also saw him withdrawing money using Locker's ATM card.
That was his compensation for the "Kevorkian" assistance, Minor claimed.
Locker said he was out of cash because he'd been taken for $1,400 by a "Kevorkian" candidate he met earlier that night on the West side.
Minor, a convicted felon with a history of drug and assault arrests, faces 25 years to life if convicted.
