Attorneys for a Little Rock woman on trial for killing her male roommate called on jurors Wednesday to consider the bigger picture of their relationship beyond the circumstances of his January 2014 death, which one defense attorney described as a "freak accident."
Melissa Diane Stearns, 35, was a victim of ongoing domestic abuse -- both physical and verbal -- by 63-year-old Herschel Lynn Johnson, defense attorney Colleen Barnhill told jurors who are preparing to consider a first-degree murder charge against Stearns. Proceedings before Pulaski County Circuit Judge Barry Sims resume at 9 a.m. today.
Fearing Johnson, Stearns had called police four times on the man -- a "perpetual drunk" who turned mean while drinking -- in the six months before his death, Barnhill said, acknowledging that Johnson had died at her client's hands.
But the night he was killed, Johnson had been berating Stearns because she hadn't fixed him anything to eat, Barnhill said. She told jurors Stearns didn't mean to kill Johnson when she "cut" him with a kitchen knife "without thinking."
His death was a "freak accident" that Stearns never intended and never wanted, the attorney said. The knife wound in his back was less than three-fourths of an inch and so small, the medical examiner who autopsied him initially overlooked it, Barnhill told the seven women and five men hearing evidence.
She said Stearns left after Johnson was hurt, fearful of his anger and never thinking he would not survive the wound. She did not say whether Stearns would take the stand to directly tell jurors her version of events.
Prosecutors opened their case with a much different description of the fatal wound. Deputy prosecutor Luke Daniel told jurors that the knife was "shoved" half-way through Johnson's body, through his left shoulder, lung and into his heart, where it cut the aorta, causing him to bleed to death.
Since Stearns left the Minton Road home right after the stabbing, sheriff's deputies didn't immediately realize she lived there, the prosecutor said. Stearns also initially lied to authorities, denying she knew anything about Johnson's death, admitting to the knifing only after deputies confronted her about her lies, Daniel said.
The only other witness to the killing, neighbor Jimmy Ray James, said he was in the bathroom when he heard the pair arguing and Johnson call Stearns a "whore." And when Stearns held the knife, he heard Johnson dare her to use it, James said.
"He said 'What are you going to do with that knife?' She said 'Call me a whore again and I will show you,'" James testified. "All I heard was 'Ugh.' He screamed out when he got stabbed. I didn't see it but I heard it."
Exiting the bathroom, James said, he saw Johnson sitting on his bed bleeding from the shoulder.
"[I asked] 'Are you going to call 911?' He said he was going to have another beer first," James told jurors. "I thought that if he wants another beer more than he wants help, it can't be that bad."
Stearns begged him for a ride to the nearby home of a friend, and James said he agreed but only after trying to persuade her to stay with Johnson. Stearns said she didn't want to be alone with Johnson and that she also feared she would get arrested for what she had done, James told jurors.
After dropping Stearns off -- a round trip of less than three minutes -- James said he returned to check on Johnson and found the man still sitting on the bed. James said he examined the wound but didn't think it was too bad.
"I looked at it and I thought it wasn't life threatening and I made a mistake," he said.
Prosecutors ended the day by playing jurors the contradictory recorded interviews that Stearns had given sheriff's investigator Jeff Allison.
Confronted about her deception, Stearns told the deputy that Johnson had gotten mad because she hadn't fixed dinner and tried to rape her, giving up the attack when she got her phone and threatened to call police. She said she left the house to do some shopping and let Johnson cool down but he was still angry when she returned.
Hoping to make peace, she told the investigator, she had gone into Johnson's bedroom with a knife and an apple to ask him whether he wanted the fruit added to the chicken salad she was making for his dinner. Johnson grew abusive and hit her, she said, saying she swung the knife at him after he had turned and walked away from her.
"I just barely swung," she said. "I didn't even think it went into him. I never felt any kind of jerk or nothing."
With an angry Johnson yelling at her, Stearns said she left the home with James, fearing his anger and not knowing how badly he had been hurt.
"Never in my life have I ever thought that I was going to kill anybody," she said. "My arm, it went out. There was no force behind it. "I just wanted him to take me serious."
Joshua Matthew Strong, the friend who took the woman in the night of the slaying, told jurors a "hysterical" and crying Stearns had shown up at his home, saying she had "nicked" Johnson with a knife after an argument. Pressed by prosecutors, Strong acknowledged he was reluctant to testify against his friend, but he called her "controlling" and "overbearing," with a "very strong personality," who could be perceived as "mean." Johnson, whom he barely knew, was a "passive guy" who was "kind of scared" of her, Strong told jurors.
Asked by prosecutors to compare Stearns and Johnson in both size and health, both Strong and James said the woman, who was booked into the jail weighing 250 pounds, was much larger and much healthier than the older man, who was described as "frail" and thin. Lifelong friend Linda Ferguson told jurors Johnson was "very weak" and "not strong enough to be physical."
Metro on 04/09/2015