Through hysterical sobs, the man accused of killing a clerk and setting fire to Sifton Market took the stand Wednesday intent on setting the record straight.
However, prosecutors were not swayed by the emotional scene nor Mitchell Heng’s testimony and, on cross-examination, repeatedly questioned why his story has changed at least seven times.
Heng, 24, admitted to feeding investigators “a bunch of bull (expletive) stories” but for a reason — he was scared for his and his family’s safety — and was adamant he was telling the truth now.
When asked if he killed 47-year-old Amy Marie Hooser, Heng replied “No, I didn’t.” He says a methamphetamine dealer he knows only by the moniker “Zip” killed Hooser, and ordered him to rob and set fire to the store, or risk facing the same fate.
Heng is on trial in Clark County Superior Court for first-degree murder, first-degree robbery and first-degree arson. Both the prosecution and defense rested Wednesday, and the case is expected to go to the jury Thursday.
On the night of Jan. 14, 2017, Heng went to a club in downtown Portland to celebrate a friend’s birthday. He testified to having a few drinks and smoking marijuana there. He and his friends left the bar between 2 and 2:30 a.m., he said, walked around the area and got something to eat, before driving back to Vancouver. Heng said he dropped off a friend and stopped by an apartment to sell a sack of cocaine. Shortly after 5 a.m., he went to Sifton Market, 13412 N.E. Fourth Plain Blvd., to meet Hooser.
Heng testified that Hooser had texted him to come pick up his money. He said he sold drugs to Hooser, who also carried out drug transactions, and that she owed him $300 to $350. (A detective testified Wednesday that he didn’t find evidence of Hooser’s involvement in any drug transactions.) When he arrived at the store, he entered through the front door, greeted Hooser and went to use the restroom. The door was locked, however, so he returned to the front to get a key.
Heng said Hooser tried to tell him something, but he couldn’t hear her. She then followed him toward the restroom and said Zip was in the back; Heng needed to hurry and get his money. Heng said he became “weirded out and paranoid” after learning Zip was there because he wasn’t given a heads up.
He skipped the restroom and instead followed Hooser toward the back of the store, where he greeted Zip.
“I was still weirded out that he was there,” Heng testified.
Hooser produced Heng’s money and counted it, before handing it to him to do the same.
“Her dope dealer got (expletive) mad that she was giving me money,” Heng testified. He said Hooser apparently owed Zip $6,000.
Zip started to raise his voice and looked “super high and angry,” Heng said. “You can pay him but not me?” Where the (expletive) is my money?” Heng recalled Zip saying.
Heng said Zip then struck Hooser several times, grabbed her and slammed her into a nearby rack; she was bleeding from her head.
At this point in his testimony, Heng began to sob uncontrollably and took several minutes to compose himself, wiping his face with tissues and on the sleeve of his suit jacket.
He was unsure how long the beating went on, and said he couldn’t think straight. Heng tried to calm Zip down, he said, and offered to give him the money and clear Hooser’s debt, but Zip wouldn’t have it. Heng said he also pleaded with Zip to let him and Hooser leave.
“I was worried about Amy. She was going more out of it,” Heng said.
Zip then ordered Heng to grab cigarettes. Heng went to the front and grabbed a carton of “Reds” and a drink to compose himself, he testified, as well as a lighter.
“I was scared. I didn’t know what to do,” he said.
Heng didn’t want to argue, he said, because Zip threatened “if I tried to be a hero or called the cops or did anything, he would do the same to me” and target Heng’s family. Zip said he knew where they lived, Heng testified.
Heng then tried to access the store’s safe, unsuccessfully, and set the place on fire, all on Zip’s command, he said.
When Heng looked at Amy, he said, “she didn’t look like she was there.”
Afterward, he ditched his bloody shirts in a neighborhood dumpster, he testified. He said the blood likely got on him when he gave Hooser paper towels for her head wounds.
The three-alarm fire destroyed the four-unit Sifton Plaza, which also housed a barber shop, pet supply store and pet grooming business.
Hooser’s body was located that afternoon in the deli prep area under rubble. An autopsy found she died of blunt-force trauma to the head and smoke inhalation, and her death was ruled a homicide by the Clark County medical examiner.
When Heng was later contacted by police, he said he asked them if they could protect him and his family — they said no, so he lied about what happened.
He repeatedly admitted on cross-examination to lying to investigators and his family and friends.
“I told a lot of lies, honestly,” Heng testified, as the prosecution played a recording of Heng’s interrogation and phone calls from the jail.
Deputy Prosecutor Aaron Bartlett pointed out that Heng changed his story about why he went to the store. He didn’t know Zip’s real name, despite meeting him on several occasions, or remember what Zip wore on the day of the slaying.
During the recorded interrogation, played for the jury, Heng told investigators a big, African American man who frequented the corner by the market gave him an unloaded gun and ordered him to rob the store. On the stand, he admitted to making that up.
In recorded jail phone calls, Heng told family or friends there was a man in the store with a gun and wooden paddle. He also admitted to making that up.
Since his arrest, Heng has said Hooser’s killer was her boyfriend, a black man, a store employee, a white man, an unidentified man, a white-Mexican man and Zip, Bartlett noted. Heng also said the suspect came in the store’s open door, stayed outside, accessed the store from the roof or was already inside when Heng arrived. He changed his story about how Hooser’s blood got on his clothes and what he did with them afterward, Bartlett said.
Bartlett told Heng it’s been 976 days since Hooser died, and questioned why taking the stand Wednesday was the best way to credibly tell his story.
