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Jean Feeley cries as her son, Brian, consoles her shortly after the verdict is read Monday in the criminal case of Russell Kiser. Kiser shot Feeley in the chest a year ago, then argued he shot her during a blackout caused by post-traumatic stress disorder. Photo by Clint Karlsen.

Tuesday, March 20, 2001
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Jury rejects stress defense, convicts shooter

No one has ever disputed that Russell Kiser shot his roommate's girlfriend a year ago.

But his explanation Monday provided one of the more bizarre criminal defenses seen in a Clark County courtroom in recent years.

Kiser shot Las Vegan Jean Feeley on Aug. 22, he and his attorney told a jury Monday, because of Vietnam post-traumatic stress syndrome.

Kiser's attorney, James "Bucky" Buchanan, said it was endless torture that Kiser endured as a prisoner of war in a Cambodian labor camp in 1965 that led him to shoot Feeley during a trauma-induced blackout.

Buchanan told the jury that Kiser probably did not even know he was shooting her at the time. Instead, in Kiser's mind he probably thought he was shooting his torturer -- a mysterious Khmer Rouge soldier known only as "Captain Kai."

"What he saw in the form of Ms. Feeley was maybe Capt. Kai," Buchanan said.

A year after she miraculously survived a .45-caliber bullet to the chest, Feeley said she wasn't buying any of it.

An angry Feeley said of Kiser, "He watched 'Apocalypse Now' one too many times." The movie portrays a fictional covert military mission into Cambodia.

Feeley wasn't the only one to discard the stress disorder defense as ludicrous. After 30 minutes of deliberation, a jury convicted Kiser of attempted murder and other charges stemming from the shooting. He could face a sentence of four to 41 years in prison.

But while Kiser's creative explanation for his act did bring some smiles to observers in the courtroom of District Judge Lee Gates, there was nothing funny about the crime he committed.

Authorities said Kiser, his roommate Fred Conquest and Feeley were working on their Internet business at the two men's Las Vegas apartment when an argument began. The heated quarrel led Kiser to slam Feeley on the head with his fist and then throw her to the ground.

Prosecutors said Kiser calmly went to a rear bedroom of the apartment where he retrieved the handgun. He returned and shot her once in the chest, then issued several expletives.

Feeley didn't die. The bullet traveled through her body, broke two ribs and lacerated her liver.

During the four-day trial, Buchanan tried to convince the jury that his client was severely traumatized by his experience in Vietnam.

Buchanan said Kiser was serving in the Navy as a radio technician on the USS Navaro in 1965. During a trip into Vietnam, Buchanan said Kiser was approached by an unidentified Marine captain who recruited him to go on a covert government mission into the depths of Vietnam and Cambodia.

Kiser was captured and imprisoned by the Khmer Rouge at a Cambodian labor camp, where Captain Kai mercilessly tortured Kiser and his colleagues, Buchanan said. Captain Kai would stick his finger into the bullet wound of another soldier and twist it around, repeatedly saying "You want to kill me Yankee, don't you?" he said.

"At that time in his mind, that is when the horror begins," Buchanan said of his client.

Buchanan said Kiser escaped and finished his tour of duty. During the next three decades Kiser repeatedly applied for disability from the U.S. government because of his torture but was rejected.

It wasn't until after Kiser shot Feeley, Buchanan said, that a psychologist with the Department of Veterans Affairs determined that Kiser suffers from the stress disorder, making him eligible for disability.

The problem with this defense, prosecutors said, was that none of it could be proved.

Clark County Deputy District Attorneys Giancarlo Pesci and Brian Kochevar questioned whether Kiser was ever even in Vietnam, much less a Cambodian labor camp.

Pesci said Kiser and his attorney could not produce a document known as a DD214, which details a military man's service record.

"There is no documentation of this at all," Pesci said.

After the verdict was read, Feeley said she was relieved that the jury "saw through it."

"They took someone off the streets who didn't belong there," she said.