Jurors convict Ohio trucker in office shooting

Neyland, of Findlay, was accused of fatally shooting Liberty Transportation manager Doug Smith and a second man, Thomas Lazar, after they fired him in August 2007. Lazar was a retired Pennsylvania state trooper sent to help fire Neyland.

The Associated Press

10/31/2008

BOWLING GREEN, Ohio — A jury on Thursday convicted a truck driver of gunning down his boss and another man at a trucking company office near Toledo.

Jurors deliberated for about six hours Thursday before convicting Calvin Neyland Jr. of two counts of aggravated murder in Wood County Common Pleas Court in northwest Ohio.

Neyland, who had pleaded not guilty, could be sentenced to death.

Neyland, of Findlay, was accused of fatally shooting Liberty Transportation manager Doug Smith and a second man, Thomas Lazar, after they fired him in August 2007. Lazar was a retired Pennsylvania state trooper sent to help fire Neyland.

Smith's fiance testified earlier in the week that Smith was nervous before he was to meet with Neyland, and another man said Smith feared he was going to "get beat up or worse."

Prosecutors said Neyland planned to kill his boss after finding out he was going to be fired. Neyland's attorneys did not dispute that he killed the men, but they tried to show that he had not planned the shootings.

Neyland had worked at the trucking company for just over a year and had been warned that he was one violation away from being let go. He then had a traffic accident a week before the shootings that sealed his firing, assistant Wood County prosecutor Heather Baker told jurors during opening statements of the trial.

Neyland went to the trucking office and first shot Lazar, Baker said. Neyland then shot Smith, who was sitting by himself in a second-floor office, she said.

Two men working at a window company next door testified that they heard the first gunshots, watched Neyland go into the office and then heard a few more shots.

Both identified Neyland as the man they saw with a gun.

Neyland was arrested about three hours after the slayings in a motel parking lot in Temperance, Mich., about 15 miles north of where the shooting took place.

His motel room was stocked with weapons, and police found a handgun and a will in an envelope addressed to Neyland's in his truck, Baker said. Tests showed that bullets from the gun matched those found at the trucking company, she said.