Man goes on trial in slaying of 6

LUVERNE, Ala. (AP) -- A man methodically killed a couple and four family members because they were trying to keep him away from the couple's 16-year-old daughter, a prosecutor told jurors Wednesday.
Defense attorneys in their opening statements at the trial said the evidence won't support the capital murder case against Westley Devon Harris, 24, the girl's boyfriend and father of their infant child.
Other family members have said the daughter, Janice Ball, would be the government's key witness to events surrounding the shooting deaths of her parents, three brothers and grandmother in August 2002 at a Crenshaw County farm where they lived.
District Attorney John Andrews said Ball feared Harris when he arrived at the farm two days after being chased off and having a domestic violence complaint filed against him.
Harris first tied up the grandmother, the prosecutor said.
"He tells her, 'If it hadn't been for you, I wouldn't have to act this way.' And then he shoots her in the right eye," said Andrews, clapping his hands sharply to make the sound of a gunshot.
Andrews said one of Janice Ball's brothers was dragged from a trailer and killed with the grandmother, then her mother was killed with another brother. A third brother was shot and stuffed in a car trunk and her father was gunned down at the hog pen.
Defense attorney Steve Towns said the prosecution's case won't hold up. He said that Ball was not held against her will and that "there's a lot more to it."
He said investigators developed a theory from the evidence and got Janice Ball to give them a story to fit it.