Haddon Twp. veteran's murder trial goes to jury

Three years ago, Harold Elliot, an Army veteran, was charged with murdering a man who only hours earlier had been drinking beer and shooting whiskey with him at the American Legion post in Haddon Township.

The last anyone saw them, Michael Unger was helping his new drinking buddy up the stairs to the apartment where Elliot lived in the attic of his mother's house.

Then there was a 911 call at 3:38 a.m. the day after Thanksgiving. Unger was dead in Elliot's bathroom, shot through the chest with Elliot's .357 Magnum.

At Elliot's three-day trial this week, attorneys presented very different versions of what happened that night in the apartment. The jury is scheduled to begin deliberations Monday. Elliot, who has been charged with murder, faces a possible sentence of life in prison.

Was Elliot defending himself? He testified that Unger attacked him and that he shot him out of fear for his life, according to his attorney, Jeffrey Zucker.

Or was it, as Assistant Camden County Prosecutor Peter Gallagher described in court Thursday, a case of a severely intoxicated Elliot waiting for Unger to come out of the bathroom and then shooting him for reasons unknown?

"Unfortunately, there are only two people who can tell you what happened in that apartment: Michael Unger and Harold Elliot," Zucker said in closing arguments Thursday.

Little was said of Unger in court, and no one from his family attended the trial.

He was 35, from Maryland, and in 2008 had recently begun dating Elliot's sister. He had traveled to New Jersey to spend Thanksgiving with his new girlfriend and meet her family, who lived next door on Locust Avenue.

Some facts both sides agree on.

The family ate their holiday dinners separately, Unger and the sister in one house, Elliot, who was 38 at the time, and other relatives in another.

But the two men ended up together at the American Legion bar, where Elliot served as commander when he wasn't working maintenance at the Haddon branch of the Camden County Library. They talked and argued on subjects including the war in Iraq and guns, according to witnesses. Unger disclosed to Elliot that he had been convicted of second-degree assault the previous year.

Then it was back to Elliot's sister's home, where they continued to drink. The autopsy found Unger had a blood-alcohol level of 0.20, more than twice the level of drunken driving.

In court Thursday, Elliot - dressed in a black suit and not the camouflage jacket he wore earlier in the trial - sat quietly as his attorney described how his client had tried to rid himself of his new drinking buddy, but Unger followed him into his apartment.

Zucker said Unger pushed Elliot down on the bed, grabbing Elliot's groin, and demanded he hand over his gun or a key to a gun locker at the American Legion. Elliot lied, telling him the gun was in the bathroom, and then plucked it from the bedside table with the intention of scaring him off.

But he tripped over one of his three dogs, dropping the gun to the floor, according to Zucker's account. Both men went for the weapon, but Elliot got there first and shot Unger through the chest.

"If he didn't go for that gun, he may have been killed," Zucker said in court Thursday.

In his closing argument Thursday, Gallagher disputed the validity of Elliot's trial testimony.

If Unger was a threat, why did Elliot's mother and sister allow him to help Elliot back to his apartment? And if Elliot screamed for help, why did none of his family downstairs hear anything but the men arguing, as they had all night, before there was a toilet flush and then a "bang" and a "thud" - presumably the gun firing and Unger's body hitting the floor?

"His story doesn't make any sense," Gallagher said. "He waited outside the bathroom with his gun for Michael Unger to come out. When are you more vulnerable?"

Following his 2008 arrest, Elliot spent two years at the Camden County Jail before his family was able to post $500,000 bail, Zucker said.

After his trial wrapped up Thursday, Elliot left the courthouse and headed home. A couple hours later, he could be seen walking through his neighborhood and into the house where he had shot Unger.