DATE: Wednesday, August 27, 1997            TAG: 9708270484

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B8   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS 

DATELINE: INDEPENDENCE                      LENGTH:   54 lines

MAN ACCUSED IN BEHEADING, BURNING WILL HELP CASE AGAINST CO-DEFENDANT

Emmett Cressell Jr. will help prosecutors build their capital murder case against his codefendant in the burning and beheading of a black man, Cressell's attorney said Tuesday.

Cressell and Louis J. Ceparano, both white, are charged with murder in the July 25 death of Garnett P. Johnson, who was doused with fuel and burned alive. His head was later severed.

Federal authorities are investigating whether it was a racially motivated hate crime.

A witness, Hazel Louise Anderson, told The Associated Press she heard one of the men tease Johnson during a party at Ceparano's trailer about burning him on a white cross before the attack. The men also pinned Johnson down and stripped him of his watch, she said.

Ceparano, 42, is charged with capital murder and robbery and could face the death penalty if convicted. Cressell, 36, is charged with first-degree murder and robbery and could face up to life in prison.

After a bond hearing in Grayson County General District Court, defense attorney Mark Claytor said Cressell will cooperate with prosecutors and denied Cressell is a racist.

``I don't know what Ceparano's motives were, but to call my man a racist because he was at a party when the crime occurred is unfair to him, and the facts will bear it out,'' Claytor said.

Cressell, an unemployed sawmill worker, and Johnson were ``drinking buddies for years,'' Claytor said.

In asking Judge Daniel Bird to set Cressell's bond at $50,000, Claytor noted that Cressell and one of two women who attended the party drove eight miles to notify the sheriff of Johnson's death.

``We want everyone to know his (Cressell's) involvement. I think people will be surprised,'' Claytor told Bird.

Claytor also noted that Cressell had never fled from prosecutors in any of his previous scrapes with the law. Just three weeks before the killing, Cressell was accused of punching a man and breaking his nose and charged with malicious wounding. The man he hit was white.

When he was 19, Cressell served two years in prison for burglary. Ten years later, he was convicted of fraud for keeping a rented video camera.

``You can tell by my record that I will stay here,'' Cressell said in a low, soft voice. His mother, Wilma Cressell, said she would post her 79-acre farm to secure the bond.

Commonwealth's Attorney J.D. Bolt argued against bail, citing Cressell's involvement in a fight three weeks before Johnson died.

Bird denied Cressell bond and ordered him and Ceparano to appear for a preliminary hearing on Oct. 7. ILLUSTRATION: A judge denied bond for Emmett Cressell Jr., 36, on

Tuesday and ordered him to appear for a preliminary hearing Oct. 7.

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