Accused Killer Just Tried to Hide Suicide, Defense Says

An accountant’s lawyer contended Monday that his client drove his wife’s dead body to San Diego and placed it on a boat he set afire to avoid being blamed for her suicide, but a prosecutor said the trip was to cover up a murder.

“He thought he had washed it all away. He thought he had hidden his sins,” prosecutor William Clayton said of defendant Gaylynn Earl Morris, 51, of suburban Cave Creek.

“He was too selfish to live up to his responsibility,” defense attorney Tom Henze said of his client.

Morris is charged with first-degree murder in the June, 1989, death of Ruby Morris, 49. Both sides agree that she died in their bed of at least one gunshot wound, but disagree on who pulled the trigger.

There’s no dispute that Morris cleaned up the bedroom and then drove his wife’s body to California, placed it on their cabin cruiser and destroyed it at sea.

The trial included testimony of marital infidelity--Morris conceded having an affair with his wife’s sister--and incest. During testimony, the sister, Peggy Hinton of Monroe, La., denied having an affair with Morris.

Henze argued that Ruby Morris took her own life because she was emotionally ravaged by her husband’s affair, and that her life had been in turmoil since she was sexually assaulted as a teen-ager by her father.

“They kept this secret for 30 years. This woman had never had a chance to heal from that,” Henze told the 15-member jury panel in Maricopa County Superior Court. A 12-member jury was to be selected and begin deliberations Tuesday.

Clayton argued that Morris decided to kill his wife because she had confronted him in front of his mother about his affair and because she threatened at that time to expose that he skimmed money from his business.

“She was going to destroy him. That was the threat,” said Clayton, a deputy county attorney. “The affair is what brought that threat to life,” Clayton said later.

Ruby Morris, Clayton said, “was a survivor” and wasn’t intending to commit suicide despite her troubles. She had consulted a lawyer, seen a psychologist, confronted her husband about his behavior and rationally discussed the situation with relatives, the prosecutor said.

“She stood up to him. She said, ‘You’re not going to get away with this,’ ” Clayton said.

Clayton said only after authorities started to unravel the truth did Morris concoct the story about his wife committing suicide and his wanting to conceal that fact by disposing of the body.

“The big lie is that she committed suicide,” Clayton said. “The truth . . . is that he is a liar when he has to (be) and that he is covering up the murder of Ruby Morris.”

Henze denied that Morris skimmed from his business. “We have no evidence that either of these people was motivated by greed,” Henze said.

He said his client was a “selfish man” who decided right away to cover up the suicide.

“He didn’t want to take the blame for this,” Henze said. Of the cover-up attempt, Henze said, “Earl Morris was weaving a tangled web, and it wasn’t a very good one.”