Guzek’s Accomplice Testifies About Houser Murders

Mark Wilson told jurors in Randy Guzek’s fourth death penalty trial Thursday afternoon that when he met Guzek during their senior year at Redmond High School, he was going through a difficult time.

“To me it was, I was being befriended by someone that had never befriended me before,” said Wilson, who admitted he was suffering from depression and trying to fit into a new school. “And I felt from outcast, to pretty popular.”

After all, Wilson said, Guzek, had money, friends, even a new car- everything Wilson wanted.

Wilson said their friendship led to parties, and drugs -specifically methamphetamine.

But then the stakes grew even higher. Wilson says the two committed countless burglaries, and eventually carried out the murders of Rod and Lois Houser of Terrebonne in 1987.

In court Thursday, Wilson, who is now serving a life sentence for fatally shooting Rod Houser, said the murders were not “revenge killings.”

“People say that we went there to kill Rod and Lois Houser, because Randy was mad at Mr. Houser, the man I killed, because Mr. Houser would not let Randy date his niece anymore,” said Wilson, “I have never said anything like that. There’s never been any evidence about that, and it’s just flat-out fabrication.”

Wilson – who agreed to testify against Guzek to avoid the death penalty in a plea deal that got him a true life sentence – also tried to shoot down the notion that Guzek was the mastermind behind the killings, though he acknowledged remembering little of the crimes because he was high on meth at the time.

“If I can say, ‘I only did it because I was following, I only did it because this dominant character told me I should do this’ – nobody told me I had to do that (the killing). I chose to do that myself. I pulled the trigger. I’m solely to blame for that.”

But prosecutors pointed out it conflicted with testimony Wilson gave in 1988.

Earlier Thursday, a forensic psychiatrist who’s reviewed the case over the last 20 years said Guzek is a severe sociopath and is likely to be violent in the future – even if he’s released from prison at age 78.

Dr. George Suckow said Guzek has shown no remorse for murdering the Housers.

Suckow testified for hours, saying randy guzek has anti-social personality disorder, for which there is no cure.

He said Guzek’s father, Joel, is also a sociopath, a disorder that can run in families, but doesn’t always.

“Now, he has three siblings, none of them have followed the same pattern that he did, so they were able to survive that environment and get out of it,” Suckow said. “Mr. Guzek chose not to.”

Guzek had been charged or convicted of several crimes: burglary and arson, physical and sexual abuse, and ultimately, murder.

One of the questions jurors must answer is whether he’s likely to commit violent acts in the future. Suckow said yes: “What he used to do is what he’ll probably do in the future.”

But the defense fought back, saying future behavior can’t be predicted, that parts of Suckow’s testimony conflicted with what he’s previously said in the case, and that Guzek has had a clean record in prison.

“I think he’s intelligent,” the psychiatrist said. “I think he figured out that if you keep acting that way, it’s going to come up again the next time he has a hearing.”

But some of the arguably most shocking testimony came from what Guzek is said to have told his father after brutally killing Rod and Lois Houser.

“His father asked him if it was worth it, and he said it sure was,” Suckow testified, as members of the victims’ family sat in the front row of the courtroom.