Did ’66 shooting kill cop in 2007?

Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA

A jury will determine the fate of a 74-year-old man who shot a police officer in 1966 and was charged with murder after the officer’s death in 2007.

Attorneys rested their cases, and jurors began deliberations Friday after the weeklong murder trial of William J. Barnes, who served 16 years for the attempted murder of Officer Walter T. Barclay during a botched burglary.

The key issue for the jury of 10 women and four men will be whether the shooting that left the 23-year-old rookie paralyzed from the waist down was the direct cause of his death 41 years later.

Assistant District Attorney Edward Cameron held up autopsy photos showing Barclay’s bedsores and withered legs and said the officer spent 20 percent of the remaining four decades of his life either in a hospital or a nursing home.

Defense attorney SThe defense contends Barclay was further injured in three car accidents and two falls.

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