Albion security guard testifies he shot janitor out of fear

WORCESTER - Howard F. Penn told a jury Thursday that he feared for his own safety when he fatally shot Lloyd Worster, a co-worker at the Albion rooming house at 765 Main St., two years ago.

On trial in Worcester Superior Court on first-degree murder and firearm charges in the Jan. 10, 2014, slaying, the 56-year-old Mr. Penn took the witness stand in his own defense Thursday afternoon.

Mr. Worster, 52, died after being shot once in the back in the security office at the Albion, where he worked as a handyman and Mr. Penn was employed as a security guard.

The fatal shooting and an altercation between the two men that preceded it were captured on a surveillance video that was played for the jury earlier in the trial. Mr. Penn called 911 after the shooting and said he had just shot a man who had attacked him.

"I'm pleading self-defense," he told police in a recorded interview that followed.

Under questioning Thursday by his lawyer, James B. Krasnoo, Mr. Penn, who is black, said he and Mr. Worster had been feuding for months leading up to the fatal shooting. He said Mr. Worster, who was white, had directed racial slurs at him and threatened to kill him during earlier arguments.

Asked by his lawyer how he felt when Mr. Worster allegedly addressed him using a racially offensive word, Mr. Penn said he was "enraged by it because it was meant to hurt. It was meant to degrade." 

On the day of the shooting, he said, Mr. Worster blocked his entrance into the security office at the Albion and initially refused to let him by despite repeated requests. Once he was able to enter the office, Mr. Worster made "an abrupt movement," according to Mr. Penn.

"I felt he was going to take offensive action against me," he told the jury. He said he struck Mr. Worster three times with his cane and a struggle ensued. Mr. Penn said he fell to the floor and hit his head on a file cabinet. Mr. Worster kicked him twice in the head while he was on the floor and threatened to kill him, according to Mr. Penn.

"He appeared in a rage," he told the jury.

Mr. Penn said the fight ended and he asked Mr. Worster to retrieve his cane so he could get up.

Mr. Worster picked up the cane, but refused to give it back to him, he said.

"He called me a couple of ethnic slurs," he testified.

Mr. Penn said he picked himself up off the floor and buzzed a visitor into the building.

"He's walking around with the cane and I'm feeling very apprehensive at that point cause I don't know what he's going to do with the cane," Mr. Penn said of Mr. Worster.

He testified that Mr. Worster again threatened to kill him. "And he tells me, 'I've done it before,' " he said.

"He escalated it to an entirely other level when he said, 'I've done it before,' " Mr. Penn told the jury. "That means you have no reservations about doing it again," he said.

"I was deathly afraid. We've had arguments before, he and I, but I've never heard that language before," Mr. Penn testified.

As depicted on the surveillance video, Mr. Penn said he retrieved a loaded 9 mm handgun from a bag in which he kept his belongings and shot Mr. Worster in the back as he was walking away from him.

"I believe the force I used was proportionate to the threat," he told the jury.

Under cross-examination by Assistant District Attorney Brett F. Dillon, Mr. Penn conceded that the initial altercation had been over for about a minute and a half when he fired the fatal shot.

"It was immediately after Mr. Worster told me he had killed somebody before and he was going to kill me," he added.

In his 911 call, which was also played for the jury, Mr. Penn said he shot someone who had attacked him.

"You attacked Lloyd Worster, though, didn't you?" Mr. Dillon asked.

"No. I was defending myself against somebody who threatened my life," responded the defendant.

The prosecutor questioned why Mr. Penn never told police that he was fearful of Mr. Worster or that Mr. Worster told him he had killed someone before.

"It was too short a time frame for me to put my thoughts together," Mr. Penn said.

Closing arguments in the case were scheduled for Friday morning.