One of the last witnesses called by Cobb County prosecutors before they rested their case Thursday testified that Joshua Drucker had previously threatened the two people he is accused of killing.
Crystal Hynson identified herself as best friend to Drucker's sister and a close friend of the victims, David "Andrew" Robertson, 40, and Lora Nikolova, 25.
Hynson testified that Robertson played her a voicemail that Drucker left for him a few months before the slayings on April 5, 2004. In it, she said Drucker was angry because Robertson wasn't picking up the phone to talk to him.
"Josh was screaming he was going to blow Andrew's head off, blow Lora's head off, blow both dogs' heads off and burn the house down," Hynson said.
Hynson also testified that she was at Robertson's home near Marietta a few hours before the shooting took place. She said Robertson was wary of having Drucker come to his house that evening.
"He didn't want to have anything to do with Josh, because he knew Josh was up to something," Hynson said.
Hynson said she asked what Robertson meant by that and he didn't specify, except to say that he thought Drucker would be going back to jail soon. She assumed he meant Drucker was going to get caught up in some kind of drug deal.
Hynson said "there is no way in the world I think Andrew saw what was coming to him."
Hynson said she considered Drucker a close friend at that time, but she said he been doing progressively more methamphetamine and acting more unstable.
Drucker told police in a videotaped interview that he killed Robertson because he had provided drugs to Drucker's sister that she overdosed on, and she suffered severe brain damage as a result. That happened in February 2003, about a year before the slayings. In his statement to detectives, Drucker said he blamed Robertson for his sister, Amanda Drucker's, condition and he had been stewing over it for months. Drucker could be sentenced to death penalty if convicted.
Hynson painted a different picture of Drucker's attitude toward Robertson after the sister's injury. >he said the two men had been best friends.
She recounted a conversation in which Drucker told her Robertson wasn't at fault for what happened to his sister and assured her, "Amanda did this to herself."
Defense attorney Jimmy Berry twice asked the judge to declare a mistrial Thursday. The first motion to dismiss was made because the defense said statements made by District Attorney Pat Head in article posted on ajc.com, where Head said there was no doubt about the defendant's guilt. Berry said the statements were prejudicial to the case.
The second motion to dismiss came during Hynson's testimony. Berry argued that some of Hynson's statements on the stand differed from her initial statements to police, and that prosecutors had not disclosed those changes in her testimony prior to trial.
Superior Court Judge Robert E. Flournoy III denied both motions.
The state rested its case Thursday, and the defense will start calling its witnesses Friday.
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