BY DAVID GRANT LONG

MONTICELLO — Less than an hour after killing his "best friend," 16-year-old Jordan Calliham of Dove Creek began laying plans to establish an alibi for the time of the drug-related slaying, his former girlfriend testified Tuesday.

Calliham and his brother Terrill, now 20, are being tried on charges of criminal homicide, a first-degree felony, for allegedly murdering 17-year-old James Eaton in a grove of cedar trees just inside the Utah state line last April.

Eaton’s bullet-riddled body was discovered several days after he was reported missing from his Dove Creek home on Easter, and the Callihams were arrested following a three-week investigation by Utah and Colorado police.

"Jordan called Terrill on his cell phone (after the murder) so that if someone looked (at the phone record), it would show he called from Cortez," recounted Misty Ernst, even though they were traveling only 10 miles south of Dove Creek on their way to Cortez in her 1995 Dodge Neon after leaving the murder scene.

Ernst, 23, had also been charged with criminal homicide but agreed to plead guilty to a reduced charge of obstructing justice and testify for the prosecution in return for probation.

She testified that even though her teenage boyfriend of two years and Eaton were best friends and constant companions, Calliham suspected Eaton of stealing $300 worth of drugs from his stash a few days earlier because "he was the only one who knew where it was."

So when she drove them toward Monticello that night, supposedly to buy more drugs, Ernst explained, "I thought (the Calliham brothers) were going to do something, but not that."

Ernst tearfully recounted how the three youths had gotten out of the car and walked into the nearby woods to smoke a joint while she stayed behind.

"I couldn’t see them, but I could hear," she said. "They were smoking and they were laughing . . . .

"Then I heard one gunshot, then I heard a bunch —it stopped a minute and then there was one more shot." Ernst told an investigator, he later testified, that she’d heard Eaton screaming in pain and asking, "Why are you killing me —what have I done to you?"

The brothers returned to the car a short time later with Terrill wearing Eaton’s coat, she said, and told her to "Go! Go!"

When she asked what had happened and if James were dead, she said, "Jordan said he seen Terrill pull his gun out so he pulled his out — Terrill shot, so he started shooting.

"Jordan said he finished him off in the head."

Ernst said Terrill Calliham also had made a comment about how long it had taken Eaton to collapse onto the ground.

"Terrill said he shot him and he wasn’t falling over," she said. "He said he was afraid he’d have to kick him over."

Ernst said Terrill Calliham, whom she dropped off back in Dove Creek, told her and Jordan to go visit friends in Cortez "so we would have an alibi."

This done, she continued, they returned to Dove Creek, where Jordan Calliham showed her two pistols with blood on them and cleaned one with a towel, leaving the other for his brother to take care of.

Stephen McCaughey, Terrill Calliham’s attorney, stressed in his opening statement that the defendants have the right to a presumption of innocence, and that the guilt of each must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

"Terrill Calliham will present evidence that he was somewhere else at the time Misty Ernst says this crime was committed," McCaughey said, urging the jury to "keep an open mind."

In his cross-examination of Ernst, McCaughey brought out that she’d made conflicting statements to investigators, finally giving the version retold in court only after she was threatened with possible imprisonment and losing custody of her young son.

Ernst admitted telling police before Eaton’s body was found that he might have been in hiding because he owed drug dealers money. She testified that she’d actually heard this rumor in Dove Creek even though, of course, she knew it wasn’t true.

She also admitted telling classmates at Pueblo Community College after his remains were discovered that Eaton had been shot and tortured over a period of time by people who were drinking beer, another rumor that had been going around Dove Creek.

Ernst testified that she’d also tried to lay the entire blame on Terrill Calliham to "protect Jordan."

Three young men who had been inmates in the San Juan County Jail with Jordan Calliham were called as witnesses by County Attorney Craig Hall and testified he’d given them similar and graphic accounts of Eaton’s slaying:

• One said he’d told Deputy Greyson Redd of a conversation during which Jordan Calliham related that he and his girlfriend "were present" when the victim was killed along a country road.

• Another testified Calliham had told him the killing was over money that Eaton owed him for a quarter-pound of marijuana, and that even though the victim was his best friend, he "got what he deserved."

• A third former inmate testified that Calliham told him he’d "capped" Eaton because he owed him $300 for cocaine.

Happy Morgan, Jordan Calliham’s attorney, provided no clue about her defense strategy, postponing her opening statement until the prosecution is finished. Morgan did bring out, under her cross-examination of Ernst, that the state’s star witness began a sexual relationship with Jordan Calliham when he was 14 years old.