Gouverneur pastor recalls seeing murder victim with man now accused of killing him

Mar. 28—GOUVERNEUR — A local clergyman who ministered to Ronald E. "Huck" Durham says he recalls seeing him at a church food pantry with the man who is now accused of murdering him.

Bob F. LaVeck is the pastor at Christian Life Fellowship, which operates the Grace Food Pantry. He also knows the man initially accused of killing Mr. Durham, 22-year-old Frederick A. "Freddy" Wing Jr. of Gouverneur, and the man now accused of that murder, 46-year-old Adam W. Smith of Lake Placid.

Mr. Durham, a former Gouverneur village Department of Public Works employee of more than 40 years, was killed by a stab wound to the neck on Feb. 11 in East Riverside Cemetery on Van Buren Road. Mr. Wing was wrongfully charged with the killing the same day and then released from jail on March 3 after investigators determined he did not commit the murder.

While Mr. Wing was incarcerated, a second murder took place. William M. Freeman, 67, was found dead of multiple stab wounds on March 2 in his Rossie home. Smith was arrested and charged with both murders the following week and is now incarcerated at the St. Lawrence County jail without bail, pending further court proceedings.

Mr. LaVeck said Mr. Durham, who was well known around town, would often come to the Grace Food Pantry just to socialize.

"He had a bad back, so he used to come to the food pantry and just sit and talk with everybody, basically," Mr. LaVeck said. "A lot of time I have to go out and pick up big loads of food. He couldn't lift things, but he knew these different guys, down-and-outers, honestly, and he'd try to get them to do different jobs and sometimes would get them to unload our trailers when we got food ... [one] of these guys was Freddy."

"Huck had these kind of, in my way of looking at it, kind of odd relationships with numerous guys down on their luck who may have some skills ... Huck was always trying to get people to work for him," the pastor said. "The people he brought into the food pantry doesn't take in the whole picture. I know he had guys working for him [who] didn't come to the food pantry."

Mr. LaVeck recalls a close relationship between Mr. Durham and Mr. Wing.

"He really knew Freddy. Huck was like Freddy's dad," Mr. LaVeck said. "I've known Freddy for almost 30 years and I can honestly say there's not a violent bone in that kid's body. He never loses his temper, not with me at least."

That description mirrors in a prior interview how Mr. Wing's relatives described his and Mr. Durham's relationship.

Mr. Wing is intellectually disabled. During those prior interviews with the Times, his relatives said he has trouble with comprehension and short-term memory. Mr. LaVeck said he noticed Mr. Wing "didn't have a good grasp of things like money."

When he heard Mr. Wing had been accused of murdering Mr. Durham, "I knew something was off."

The pastor said he had also seen Mr. Durham with Smith at the food pantry, and he was put off by Smith's overall vibe.

"I think [Smith] was only here once or twice. I'd say within a year to two," Mr. LaVeck said. Smith made a strong enough impression, that "the moment I heard Huck got murdered, honestly, I swear, this guy was the first thing that came to mind."

"Adam, he made me feel ... I could tell he felt uncomfortable being in a church, the one or two times he came. I think I heard that he was a meth head. The way he acted, it really felt that way. I've been around meth heads before," he said.

Mr. LaVeck said he recognizes drug-induced behavior. He worked in faith-based drug and alcohol rehabilitation programs in the Bronx and Philadelpia, Pa. Prior to that, Mr. LaVeck said he had a drug addiction himself 55 years ago, and said he was able to overcome the affliction through his faith.

"[Smith] kind of looked burned out, you know? Kind of overly nervous, like he really didn't want to be where he was. That nervousness, that shiftiness," he said.

Mr. LaVeck said from what he knew of Mr. Durham, "Huck had a pattern he rigidly lived to every day. He'd go to sleep around 5 or 6 o'clock. He'd wake up about 3:30 [a.m.] and that was the start of his day. I've heard the first thing he did was go to Stewart's to get coffee."

"Pretty early on [in the day], he'd go to the cemetery to be with his wife's grave," Mr. LaVeck said.

Mr. Durham's wife, Sharon T. Durham, died Jan. 9, 2020 and is buried in East Riverside Cemetery, where Mr. Durham was killed three years later and is also now buried.

He said Mr. Durham was being treated for cancer and believes if he hadn't been murdered, he wouldn't have lived much longer.

Mr. LaVeck said Mr. Durham was a heavy smoker, "like a chimney, very addicted," and kept smoking through his cancer treatments. The pastor recalled Mr. Durham would get up partway through church services and go outside to smoke.

"With older people, they get really set in their ways. You can talk logic and common sense 'til you're blue in the face," Mr. LaVeck said.

About a month before Mr. Durham was murdered, Mr. LaVeck said, "something happened to him. He was having some kind of medical treatment and he lost his ability to climb stairs. He had that giant truck. He had to get help to get into it. The last few weeks, my understanding was he'd have someone go into Stewart's and get the coffee."

Mr. LaVeck recalled Mr. Durham had a close relationship with his late wife.

"From what I understand, Huck doesn't know how to read, or doesn't read well, so his wife took care of a lot of bills and the money stuff, reading and writing kind of stuff," the pastor said. "According to Huck, she was next to Peter himself, just the most spiritual person you could ever imagine. She was his spiritual kind of crutch ... I really believed he leaned on his wife in that department."

He said Mrs. Durham's death devastated Mr. Durham.

"I've been to a lot of funerals. When a loved one dies, there's a time of mourning, but you've got to let them go. Huck never let go. He depended on his wife so much when she was alive, he just couldn't handle it when she passed away. It was like she was still there," Mr. LaVeck said.

Mr. LaVeck said he visited Mr. Durham's family on Feb. 11, shortly after they'd been informed he was murdered.

"When the whole family was meeting at Huck's house right after it happened, we went and I was Huck's pastor and Freddy's pastor. There was very heavy, strange vibes going on in that meeting there. There were all kinds of suspicion going around," he said. "The first day or two of this thing, there was a lot of ignorance ... that includes the troopers."

Mr. LaVeck said after meeting with Mr. Durham's family, he had to go to Watertown. He came back to Mr. Durham's house later in the day, but they were all gone. The only person he noticed there was a state police investigator.

"He came out to me and said who are you, what are you doing here. I told him I was Huck's pastor. He asked if I knew he'd been murdered. I said yes, I did. He was doing some investigation in the house and had everybody leave," Mr. LaVeck said.

On Feb. 18, he officiated Mr. Durham's funeral.

"The funeral, or the day before the funeral, the wake ... the place was packed. I'm telling you, I've never seen so many people in a funeral," Mr. LaVeck said. During the ceremonies, he said he noticed state troopers and Gouverneur village police officers were mixing in with the crowd.

"There were these two guys sitting there, looked about the same age and wearing the same kind of clothes," he said. "I walked up to them and said who are you guys ... they said we're troopers here at the request of Huck's son, and I think Huck's son was worried something might happen, like a fight breaking out."

Mr. LaVeck said he's still shocked by Mr. Durham's murder, and also Mr. Freeman's.

"This murder thing, it's kind of a rare thing for backcountry up here," he said. "It just is a terrible thing."

Although police and the St. Lawrence County district attorney have recognized Mr. Wing as innocent of Mr. Durham's murder, a second-degree murder charge against him still stands. Mr. Wing's attorney, Edward F. Narrow, and St. Lawrence County District Attorney Gary M. Pasqua are working on going through the legal mechanics to get the charge dismissed.

When Mr. Wing was released from jail on March 3, he was placed under probationary supervision. On March 16, Mr. Wing appeared in front of St. Lawrence County Court Judge Gregory P. Storie, who released him from probationary supervision and put Mr. Wing as released on his own recognizance. In court that day, Mr. Pasqua said he had no objections to the shift.

"Given ... another individual has been arrested for the crime Mr. Wing is charged with ... there's no reason for him to report to the probation department," Mr. Pasqua said in court on March 16. He added that he's working with Mr. Narrow "toward a resolution ... in the coming days or weeks."

That day, Mr. Narrow said "the case is kind of in limbo," however, he anticipates Mr. Wing's murder charge being dismissed "rather quickly."

He said there are three options for getting the charge dropped. One would be for Mr. Pasqua to ask Judge Storie to return the case to local court, and there ask the sitting town justice to modify the charge to a misdemeanor and "dismiss in the interest of justice in local court."

The second option is to send the case to a grand jury who would return a "no bill" which would lead to dismissal of the charge.

Option three is asking Judge Storie to sit as a local justice, allowing him jurisdiction to dismiss the charge in county court.

Mr. Narrow said he understands the district attorney's office can't move as fast as the defense would like.

"Gary's busy with the active homicide investigation," Mr. Narrow said. "Freddy's important to everybody."

"We've discussed how we're going to proceed with the charge against Mr. Wing. That will be accomplished in time, but won't be today," Mr. Pasqua said on March 15.

Officials haven't gone into details about the evidence that led police to believe Mr. Wing killed Mr. Durham. State police underwater recovery investigators were searching the Oswegatchie River in Gouverneur for evidence in February. Police declined to say whether they found anything.

"At the time that law enforcement began investigating that crime, we were provided information from Mr. Wing indicating he had intimate knowledge of what happened. They did not arrest Mr. Wing on some whim," and based on the available evidence, "they had probable cause to believe Mr. Wing committed that crime," Mr. Pasqua said March 7.

Mr. Narrow has declined to comment on the evidence that led police to develop that probable cause "only because it's an ongoing homicide investigation and my client has information that's helpful," and he could end up being a witness.

"Hopefully we can close this chapter on him being a defendant and focus on him helping the state with the homicide (case) of Mr. Durham," Mr. Narrow said.

Mr. Pasqua on March 7 added that Mr. Wing has "been truthful with law enforcement at this point."

Following a March 6 court appearance where Mr. Wing was officially placed under probationary supervision, he said little after having been advised by Mr. Narrow to not make comments to the press. He did, however, thank the St. Lawrence County jail corrections officers for treating him well during his 19 days incarcerated there.

"I want to say thank you to the correctional facility over in Canton ... they were very kind to me," Mr. Wing said right after the hearing.

Mr. Wing's intellectual disabilities made it difficult for him to understand what was happening after he'd been interviewed by state police on Feb. 11, according to his cousin, Jessica M. Bice.

She has said she doesn't believe Mr. Wing was able to understand the situation in which he found himself after being arrested. She visited her cousin in jail the Sunday after he was arrested and asked him if he understood that he was being charged with a felony and what his Miranda rights are.

"When I asked him about what Miranda rights were, he thought it had something to do with drinking. He thought he was in trouble for something with drinking," she said following the March 6 court appearance.

She says he also didn't know what a felony means.

"He thought it was something he had to pay for. He said he didn't have any money for it," because Mr. Wing's only income is from Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Mrs. Bice said.

Following Mr. Wing's release, Mrs. Bice said he is happy to be home on a comfortable bed and spending time with his family and friends.

"He was happy to look at tractors all weekend on the computer, and be in a comfy bed," she said March 6.

Mr. Wing's family has believed in his innocence from the beginning. They said he and Mr. Durham were close friends, having almost a father-and-son relationship.

"He wants to grieve his good friend ... and see the Durham family to properly say he's sorry for their loss and hug them," Mrs. Bice said.

"(Mr. Durham's relatives) wanted to reach out and speak with Freddy after Huck's death. He wasn't able to, because one, he was incarcerated, and two there was an order of protection in place," Mr. Narrow said. "Huck and Freddy were good friends. Now Freddy can mourn with Huck's family."

Mrs. Bice credits a community effort for getting her cousin exonerated and represented by Mr. Narrow.

Announcing Smith's arrest on March 7, Sheriff Brooks J. Bigwarfe told members of the press that there is "some association" between Mr. Durham, Mr. Freeman and Smith. He declined to comment further.

At the time Smith is accused of killing Mr. Durham and Mr. Freeman, he was on probationary supervision following an attempted burglary conviction.

Smith has been incarcerated at the county jail in Canton since March 2. That's when he was arrested driving Mr. Freeman's stolen 2018 Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck. He was apprehended near the Bradley Street exit on Interstate 81 heading north near Watertown. Police charged him with felony fourth-degree criminal possession of stolen property and booked him into jail.