In the early morning hours of May 22 of last year, a security camera captured Craig Crawford, shirtless and wearing no shoes, rushing in and out of the East Capitol Street home where his husband, John Williams, lived.
The silent grainy black-and-white video depicts 48-year-old Crawford bringing stacks of papers and boxes into the home, and rushing back outside. Soon, a flicker of light pulses from inside of the home.
He dashes back into the home, holding an oil can, and leaves once more empty-handed as smoke begins to billow out of the home.
This oil can, former Salt Lake City police investigator Marcos Garaycochea testified Tuesday, was found by police in a hallway near a stairwell where police believe Crawford started a fire, trapping Williams inside. The well-known Salt Lake City restaurateur died from smoke inhalation in his fourth-floor bedroom.
The video was played by prosecutors in 3rd District Court as part of a multi-day sentencing hearing for Crawford, who has pleaded guilty to aggravated murder and aggravated arson.
Judge James Blanch is expected to hear aggravating and mitigating evidence this week, and will sentence Crawford in September to either life in prison without the possibility of parole, or a 25-year-to-life sentence.
Crawford’s attorneys this week have presented expert testimony indicating that their client was suffering from psychosis and the effects of a traumatic brain injury when he lit the fatal fire.
Prosecutors have brought in their own experts who say that even if Crawford was mentally ill, he showed the ability to plan and take the necessary steps to kill his husband, who had filed for divorce earlier that month.
On Tuesday, Garaycochea also testified about another video shown in court, which showed Crawford in a police interview room on the morning of the deadly fire.
The defendant talked to himself and made odd gestures. Garaycochea testified that he believed Crawford muttered at one point, “My street cred just went up,” and later, “I could have saved ‘em.”
Defense attorney Mark Moffat pointed out during cross-examination that his client’s odd behavior showed that he was suffering from psychosis.
Much of Tuesday’s testimony centered around whether a bad fall Crawford took while skiing in 2012 caused a brain injury that would affect him years later. Defense experts say abnormalities on a scan of Crawford’s brain shows there was damage, probably caused by the 2012 fall, while experts for the prosecution said they couldn’t draw that conclusion. They said it is possible Crawford’s illicit drug use or years of having HIV may have caused the damage — not a ski accident.
Crawford initially faced the potential of the death penalty for his crimes, but prosecutors agreed to take that option off the table in exchange for his guilty pleas last month.
The defendant admitted setting the couple’s Capitol Hill home on fire shortly after Williams, 72, filed for divorce and sought a restraining order. That order was never signed, according to Garaycochea, because there were no judges available due to a legal conference.
The couple had been together about 20 years.
At about 1:20 a.m. on May 22, 2016, a neighbor called 911 to report that Williams’ house, near 600 North and East Capitol Street (200 East), was on fire.
Responding fire crews heard Williams cry for help from a fourth-floor bedroom, but could not reach him because the staircase between the third and fourth floor had burned and collapsed.
Charges indicate that Williams, who was in the process of evicting Crawford from the home, had expressed fear of Crawford and had filled out a petition for a protective order on May 21.
Williams was a well-known LGBT pioneer in Utah who owned the popular Market Street Grill and other restaurants.