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Darius Koklas, 37, was bound over to Fifth District Court to face a charge of murder Friday, Oct. 19.

Koklas is accused of shooting his brother, Darren Koklas, twice with a shotgun in front of the men's mother around 10 a.m. Aug. 16.

Defense attorney Tom Gibson, however, questioned whether his client was the perpetrator.

Darius left the house immediately after the shooting but was apprehended about an hour and a half later by sheriff's deputies.

Phyllis Koklas, the mother, testified at Darius' preliminary hearing that she thought the shooting was an accident.

Crying, she told Gibson, "(Darius) didn't murder him, no. There was no reason; he didn't want (Darren) dead."

The mother also testified that she never heard a gunshot, just what she described as a whooshing sound.

She also said several times throughout the hearing that she never saw a gun.

"I think Darius shot Derek," Phyllis said. "I didn't see it."

When asked by Gibson why she said that despite not having actually witnessed the shooting, she answered, "Well, if he didn't, who did? There was only us three in there."

She told the court that she and her two sons were talking in the living room. Darius was coming in and out of the house through a kitchen door, cleaning out his car.

The distraught mother told the court that the shooting came as a complete shock to her because there was nothing that led up to it.

"Words were said, but they weren't arguing," she told the court. "There was no argument."

"I just heard a sound," Phyllis said, crying. "And then Derek went down and never came up."

When she frantically asked Darius what happened, the mother said Darius was "standing there, in shock. It was like he wasn't even there."

Phyllis drew a diagram of her living room to show that she was in fairly close proximity to both brothers at the time.

Phyllis said she called 911 but did not perform CPR "because he wasn't breathing anyway."

"If I worried about anybody with a gun, it would have been Derek," Phyllis said. "Derek was the gun person in my house."

Despite this, Phyllis testified that she had bought Derek a Remington firearm from Wal-Mart about a year ago, although she testified she thought it was a rifle and admitted to being unsure about what kind of weapon it was.

She said Derek was going to teach her how to use the weapon because she did not know anything about guns. While being questioned by Gibson, Phyllis admitted to accidentally shooting her ex-husband about 30 years ago when attempting to unload a handgun outside of their residence.

The bullet went through the mobile home and hit her ex-husband.

Det. Mark Cannon testified that he found two shotgun locks, shotgun cartridges and drug paraphernalia in the part of the house Phyllis had earlier identified as Darius' room.

In addition, an empty box of ammunition for a Remington 870 pump-action, 12-gauge shotgun was found. From the living room, the detective said he found an expended shotgun cartridge and a wad of material used to pack a cartridge lodged in the closet wall next to the main entrance.

The weapon used to kill Derek, however, has not yet been recovered.

Later, the detective said he processed the clothes Darius was wearing at the time of his arrest, which he said included jeans with a stain on the cuff of one of the pants legs that tested presumptive positive for blood.

The cartridges and all the blood evidence have since been sent to Las Vegas for processing.

Cannon also processed the silver Buick Darius was driving when he was arrested.

The vehicle, according to the detective, contained a shotgun casing in the trunk and an expired shotgun casing on the floorboard of the driver's side, as well as a stained sandal.

Joseph Muckleroy, prosecuting for the state, told Justice of the Peace Tina Brisebill that given the testimony from the detective and Phyllis Koklas, as well as the autopsy report (which stated Derek had died from the shotgun wounds), the state had met the small burden required to show a homicide had occurred.

Gibson, however, argued that the state had failed to show that the incident was a murder, and furthermore there had been no real proof Darius was the shooter.

In a later interview, the defense attorney claimed that Phyllis' testimony about accidentally shooting her husband 30 years ago "is just the tip of the iceberg."

The defense attorney emphasized that Darius had consistently denied shooting Derek since his arrest.

Muckleroy, however, reiterated the fact that there were only three people at the scene.

"One person called 911, and one person ran," Muckleroy responded. "One person was there when the cops arrived, one was not."