Standlee testifies Sharon Mead was alive when he left her at bus stop

Travis Standlee testified Thursday during his first-degree murder trial that Sharon Mead was sleeping but alive when he left her to go get food in the early morning hours of Sept. 11, 2015.

Standlee, who described himself not as a homeless man but a 'traveler and performer,” said he and Mead curled up on the bus stop bench on First Avenue and College Drive after drinking all night and then started kissing, even though he wasn't 'attracted” to her.

'I responded as a friend in need type thing,” he explained.

When Mead stopped and couldn't go through with it, he got up and she reached out to him but then fell off the bench, Standlee said. She fell on her back and kind of laughed and didn't seem to be hurt, he added.

Standlee said he then threw away some trash on the ground but checked on her and she was sleeping, 'even snoring a little,” when he left to go buy food at the Kwik Shop on Center Point Road.

Standlee, on trial this week for first-degree murder, was the only witness for the defense after the state rested Thursday afternoon in Scott County District Court. He is accused of strangling to death Mead, 41, on Sept. 11, 2015.

Standlee was convicted in June for strangling to death Raymond Ursino, 55, and is serving up to 50 years in prison. This trial was moved to Davenport to ensure Standlee receive a fair and impartial trial because of pretrial publicity.

Closing arguments will be 9 a.m. Friday.

Standlee, originally from Bonham, Texas, said he and Mead ended up together because her boyfriend Royce Carlson and she got into an argument and told Mead he was going to be with a prostitute. Standlee decided to leave but Mead just followed him and asked if he wanted to get more to drink. That's when they went to Sam's Liquor to get beer.

The two then walked up to the drive through at Wendy's on First Avenue and got some food before going to the bus stop, which he found out later was on Coe College campus. He said more than once he wasn't that familiar with Cedar Rapids but he moved to Iowa City last year.

During his testimony, Standlee seemed to implicate Carlson as a possible suspect. He said Mead told him Carlson was abusive and made her 'do things she didn't want to.” Carlson also made lewd comments about Mead and threatened to hit her three times while they were together.

Standlee even testified he had suspicions about a possible killer but no proof for law, so he declined to say more.

When Standlee came back from the Kwik Shop he saw police cars at the bus stop and thought they had found Mead sleeping and were going to arrest her for public intoxication, so he didn't go back there. He had also been drinking and feared arrest, so he went back to the river and fell asleep.

Assistant Linn County Attorney Jordan Schier on cross asked Standlee if his memory was that much better today than six days after Mead's death because at that time he told Jeff Holst, a Cedar Rapids police investigator, he didn't remember anything.

'Not necessarily,” Standlee said.

Schier said he didn't mention going to Wendy's or the conversation he and Mead had about Carlson until today. If he didn't do anything, why didn't he just tell Holst the truth.

Standlee said he told Holst what Holst wanted to hear because he feared being arrested.

Standlee denied killing Mead.

Six days after Mead was killed on Sept. 16, 2015 at a homeless shelter in Des Moines, Standlee told Holst a different version of events. The audio recorded interview was played before the state rested Thursday.

In that interview, Standlee repeatedly denies being alone with Mead or going to the bus stop.

Then Holst tells him they found two beer cans at the bus stop and a surveillance video shows him and Mead at Sam's Liquor buying those.

Standlee said he's getting 'flashes of memory” and he does remember being in a store with her and buying Four Loco, a malt beverage.

'This is messed up,” Standlee tells Holst in the interview. 'I'm getting a little nervous now. I was wasted. I did wake up beside the bridge.”

Standlee then asks to give him some details 'off the record” and start over. He said he panicked when she fell off the bench. He doesn't know if he checked her pulse. She wasn't moving after she fell and he 'got the hell out of there.”

But Standlee, as he did on the stand, denied strangling her to Holst in the interview.