Killer or victim?

TAVARES — Was Jesse Jordan defending himself from an abusive father when he killed him and buried him in the backyard? Or did the 28 year-old beat him to death with a hammer so he could steal a motorcycle and other belongings to support his drug habit?

Jurors will struggle with these questions and others this week as Jordan’s first-degree murder trial gets underway.

Circuit Judge Don Briggs has denied the unemployed diesel mechanic’s "stand your ground" defense in the slaying of Jesse Wachter, 62.

A suspicious neighbor called sheriff’s deputies to 181 N. Lake Drive in the Mid-Florida Mobile Home Park on Jan. 11, 2014, because Jordan, his girlfriend and two other people were loading a trailer with a golf cart, motorcycle and other items from his father’s house.

Jordan claimed his father had given him the items, but the neighbor, who had not seen Wachter for weeks, was skeptical. Jordan said his father was “partying” with a girlfriend in Palatka.

A check with Jordan’s grandmother and sister confirmed that Wachter had not been heard from recently. When deputies went into the house they noticed blood spatter, a piece of carpet that had been removed and fresh paint on the wall. Investigators also noticed mulch on the golf cart and in the backyard.

Jordan denied harming his father, but when a cadaver dog “alerted” on the mulch, crime scene technicians began digging and found the father’s body. He had been beaten repeatedly with a hammer.

It was a simple case, but defense psychologist Harry Krop, Ph.D., believes that Jordan suffered battered child syndrome, alcohol and substance abuse and post traumatic stress syndrome, or PTSD.

Jordan’s uncle, Mark Wachter, said in a sworn statement that his brother used to scream at Jordan “like a lunatic” from the time he was 4 or 5 years old. “It was like, the picture you see on TV of a … scolded dog, curled up in the fetal position….”

He said his nephew lived with him for a time “because his dad didn’t care about him.”

Krop said the dad sometimes forced Jordan, his sister and his mother into “nude day” family time. Jordan said he never reported sexual abuse because he was ashamed. He was told to lie to doctors and child welfare investigators about physical abuse.

Jordan moved back to his father’s house because he had lost his job and his father was recovering from surgery. Soon, however, there was loud and bitter arguing. On the day of the slaying, Jordan told Krop his father hit him in the lip with a hammer and his fists. He said he remembered striking his father with the first blow, but after that it was “a blur.”

“I recall snapping out of it. I had a hammer in my hand and my father was on the ground.”

Krop said Wachter suffered from drug abuse, mood disorder and PTSD. Mark Wachter said his brother identified himself as “Sargeant.” “I’m a United States Army Vietnam veteran,” he quoted his brother as saying, “Almost like he was telling you he was God himself.” But he was not in the war, Wachter said. Jordan said his father was on military disability.

The final straw, Jordan disclosed to Krop, came when his father started making sexual comments about his girlfriend and the couple’s three children.

Deputies hit Jordan’s girlfriend with drug charges when they found paraphernalia in her purse. She has been placed on probation and she is expected to testify, and so is Jordan. The state will call its own psychological expert.