SEATTLE -- More than seven years after six family members were gunned down on Christmas Eve in a small farming town east of Seattle, the trial began Tuesday for one of two people charged in the deaths.
Joseph McEnroe and his former girlfriend, Michele Anderson, are accused of shooting her parents, brother, sister-in-law, 5-year-old niece and 3-year-old nephew in 2007. McEnroe and Anderson are each charged with six counts of aggravated murder.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for McEnroe. Anderson's trial has not started yet.
Gruesome details of the killings emerged in court Tuesday, including how 3-year-old Nathan Anderson was shot by McEnroe.
"Nathan climbed into his mother's arms having witnessed his father being shot, his sister being shot, his mother being used for target practice. He climbed into her arms for safety and this man put a bullet in Nathan's head," said King County deputy prosecutor Scott O'Toole.
O'Toole also described how 5-year-old Olivia had apparently tried to burrow under her mother for safety before she, too, was murdered.
Defense attorneys argue McEnroe was not the mastermind of the plot. They contend it was Michele Anderson and her paranoid delusions that wore a weak willed McEnroe down and convinced him to kill.
"It was either the Andersons or Michele and Joe. It was literally life or death. Of course, none of this was true," said defense attorney Leo Hamaji.
The King County sheriff's office said McEnroe and Anderson first shot her parents, Wayne and Judy Anderson, and dragged the bodies from the home to a backyard shed, according to court documents. The two shot Anderson's brother, Scott, his wife, Erica, and their two children soon after when they arrived for dinner.
McEnroe and Anderson had been living in a mobile on her parents' rural property about 30 miles east of Seattle, where the shootings occurred.
Anderson's trial was delayed by questions about her competency. It is scheduled for the fall.
Because capital punishment is on the table for McEnroe, the case has been delayed for trial several times.
The big question as the trial starts is how Washington state's current moratorium on executions will affect the prosecution's capital case. Legal experts say the moratorium simply means the current governor will not execute inmates. Future governors could change that. Prosecutors in Washington state are still free to pursue the death penalty, although it is becoming rare.
A recent study from Seattle University shows there is a smaller number of death penalty cases in Washington state compared to other states with similar populations. Also, over the past decade, fewer prosecutions have sought capital punishment in Washington state, according to university researchers.
