Ex-Mets player's son testifies at sword death trial

RIVERHEAD, N.Y. -- A teen accused of killing his sleeping stepfather with two blows from a samurai sword admitted it later that day, the son of ex-New York Mets star Bud Harrelson testified Wednesday.

Troy "T.J." Harrelson, the key prosecution witness against Zachary Gibian, 19, recalled their macabre meeting on the morning of Feb. 27, 2005. "He told me he killed his father," Harrelson testified.

Gibian is charged with killing his stepfather, retired New York City police officer Scott Nager, 51, while he was sleeping on the couch in their home in Hauppauge, 40 miles east of Manhattan.

Harrelson, 19, who admitted under cross-examination that he was in a drug rehabilitation program and on anti-depressants, was expected to plead guilty to hindering prosecution, a felony, sometime after testifying. Prosecutors said they will recommend a 90-day jail term and five years probation for Harrelson.

Harrelson said Gibian called him the morning of the killing asking to be picked up at home. Harrelson said when he got to his friend's house, Gibian came out appearing distraught and breathing hard. He said Gibian had a cut on one of his hands and was carrying the sword, his clothes, a knife and a cigarette lighter in a black garbage bag.

After Gibian asked if there was any blood on him, Harrelson said, the pair drove to a nearby lake, hoping to throw the incriminating evidence into the water, but it was frozen. They instead went to a strip mall and dumped the bag near a line of trash bins, he said.

The evidence was recovered after Gibian confessed to the crime, authorities said.

Defense lawyer William Keahon, who has said that Gibian was provoked by years of abuse from Nager, said he had no problem with Harrelson's testimony.

"I don't challenge the fact that my client told him, when he got in the car, that he had killed his stepdad," Keahon said.

Prosecutors say what Keahon called abuse by Nager was parental discipline and there was no history of physical abuse in the home.

Bud Harrelson, one of the stars of the World Series champion "Miracle Mets" of 1969, said outside the courtroom it was tough watching his son testify.

"He's doing good," Bud Harrelson said.