Drowned girl's mother breaks down in court

SEATTLE – As the mother of a drowned 3-year-old girl took the stand, the accused killer broke his silence and called out in court.

"A lot of lying going on around here!" Joel Zellmer blurted out in court on Tuesday.

The judge immediately excused the jury from the courtroom and scolded Zellmer. She reminded him that she's warned him about courtroom outbursts on four different occasions in the past.

Zellmer is accused of drowning his stepdaughter, Ashley McLellan, in December 2003 to collect life insurance money.

On Tuesday, seven years after the girl's drowning, the girl's mother – who is the suspect's ex-wife – recounted the fateful day for the jury.

Stacey Ferguson said she'd stayed home from work because her daughter had a fever.

"We just hung out together, her and I," she said, "in my bedroom."

Fighting back tears, Ferguson said she went into work that afternoon. She said some time after 6 p.m., she received a phone call from her boyfriend, who told her to come home.

She arrived at home to find her daughter lying on the floor with paramedics all around.

Zellmer told investigators he lay down for a nap, leaving the girl's 8-year-old brother in charge. He said the girl must have opened a sliding glass door, gone out onto the deck to eat some cake that Zellmer had left there, and then wandered down a flight of stairs to wash the cake off her hands in the unlit, uncovered pool.

Three months before the fatal incident and just after Zellmer and Ferguson married, Zellmer took out a $200,000 life insurance policy on the girl, detectives said.

Detectives: Zellmer has history of abuse

Investigators say Zellmer has a history of dating single mothers, urging them to take out insurance policies and then harming their young children, including burning the hands of one and giving another an overheated sippy cup that left blisters on her lips.

In December 2002, one year before Ashley McLellan drowned, Zellmer was babysitting for the 4-year-old daughter of his then-fiance, Michelle Barnett.

When Barnett came home, the girl, Madison, was wearing different clothes. Zellmer claimed she had "tripped and fell" into the pool, according to charging papers.

Zellmer also took out insurance in late August 1990 that would pay up to $25,000 for anyone injured in his car should it be hit by an uninsured motorist.

Just weeks later, he brought his then 4-month-old stepson, Mitchel Komendant, to a hospital, saying the boy had been injured after the family's car was rear-ended by a hit-and-run driver.

The X-rays came back negative, but three days later, Zellmer asked doctors to order new X-rays. The new X-rays showed that Mitchell had at least one, and possibly two, broken legs.

Within a week, Zellmer tried to collect on the insurance policy – an effort he dropped after his wife signed a declaration saying there had been no car accident, Detective Peters wrote.

In April 2000, Zellmer began dating Kelly Clauson, the mother of an infant son. Less than a month later, as she was preparing dinner, Zellmer's 4-year-old son came into the kitchen and told her, "My dad needs you. Your baby was in our pool."

She ran to the master bedroom, off of which was a hot tub, and saw her baby on the floor, soaking wet with a bluish pallor. Zellmer, who had been in the bedroom, claimed that the baby must have crawled into the hot tub, but Clauson said her son could not have moved the thick, insulated cover over the hot tub.

The court documents do not mention whether the boy suffered any long-term injuries.

Later that summer Clauson left the boy with Zellmer briefly. When she returned, the boy's hands were blistered with second-degree burns. Zellmer claimed the boy must have leaned against the hot glass of the fireplace.

Zellmer's attorney, Andrew Schwarz, argued at his "not guilty" pleading in 2007 that "these charges are all based on baseless allegations from ex-wives and girlfriends who have a real ax to grind with Joel."

Zellmer also is accused of fraud. Detectives said he took more than $200,000 from the state, claiming his IQ was so low he needed state support. However, his community college transcript shows Zellmer earned straight As, they said.