Attorney Concedes Sailor Shot Roommates

A Navy enlisted man killed his two sleeping roommates out of jealousy when one became friendly with the other, the sailor’s attorney said Wednesday.

The explanation for the execution-style murders came during opening statements in the trial of Christopher Welters, an 18-year-old Minnesota native accused of killing fellow sailors Thomas Wayne Grant, 24, and Thomas John Gulka, 22, on March 31 in a City Heights apartment.

Both men were shot in the head while asleep in the livingroom.

“This case is not about who done it,” defense attorney Mary Jo Barr told the jury. “It’s about why he done it.”

Barr said Welters began to feel like “the odd man out” after Gulka and Grant became good friends.

On April 1, one day after the killings, Welters was arrested outside the Circus Circus hotel in Las Vegas as he walked up to Gulka’s red Jeep, which was taken after the slayings.

Deputy Dist. Atty. John Rice told the jury that Gulka’s 9-millimeter automatic pistol, believed to be the murder weapon, was found in a safe in Welters’ hotel room.

Welters is being charged with murdering the pair while lying in wait, which would bring an automatic sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole if he is convicted.