CLARKSVILLE -- Johnson County sheriff's deputies recounted to a jury Wednesday the events as they remembered them in the shooting death last year of a fellow deputy.
Auxiliary Deputy Susan Christian testified Wednesday that she recalled her husband and fellow K-9 team member, Raymond Christian, telling her "'Sonny is down'" after a short, intense spurt of gunfire on a rural road during the early morning hours of May 15, 2015.
The Christians testified in the trial of Fred Kauffeld, who is charged with shooting 42-year-old Auxiliary Deputy Sonny Smith as Smith and the Christians searched for a burglary suspect in the Piney Bay area of eastern Johnson County.
Kauffeld, 52, is charged with two counts of capital murder in Smith's death, two counts of attempted capital murder because the Christians were in the line of fire, and burglary in the break-in of Billy Nobles' home at 1222 County Road 1723.
Circuit Court Judge William Pearson is presiding over the trial.
Susan Christian said she, her husband and Smith had followed a scent trail for about 30 minutes that the county's K-9 unit's dog, Loki, had picked up from a backpack found in a ditch at the end of Nobles' driveway.
The dog was getting excited by a fresh scent in a field along County Road 1723, she said, and Raymond Christian, using a Forward Looking Infrared device, had spotted an unidentified heat source across the road.
Smith crossed a fence from the field to the road, anticipating that the Christians would hand Loki to him. Almost as soon as he crossed the fence, the Christians heard Smith start to say, "Put up your hands."
Susan Christian said Smith never finished the sentence as they heard a rapid popping sound from the woods across the road and felt bullets whiz by them. They got down and pulled out their weapons, she said.
Just more than 100 yards south at Nobles' driveway, Deputy Curtis Bishop, with whom Smith was riding on patrol that night, testified that he heard small-bore gunfire followed immediately by large-bore gunfire.
The jury heard testimony that Kauffeld had a Marlin .22-caliber rifle with him that night and that Smith had a .45-caliber handgun. Arkansas State Police investigator Joe Carter testified that five spent .22-caliber casings and 10 .45-caliber casings were found at the shooting scene.
Smith was hit by two of the .22-caliber rounds. One wound was lethal, hitting him in the collarbone area and ricocheting down through his lung.
Kauffeld's attorney, Bill James of Little Rock, focused his cross-examination of Susan Christian on her statement that Smith never identified himself as a lawman.
James contends that Kauffeld did not know it was a sheriff's deputy he shot at because no one identified themselves as law enforcement officials until after the shooting stopped.
James said Tuesday in his opening statement that Kauffeld feared that Nobles, with whom he had been feuding over a woman, was going to recruit people to find him and beat him.
Raymond Christian also said under cross-examination by James that in his initial statement on the shooting only hours afterward he thought "the bad guy," the person they were searching for, fired 10 times and Smith fired five times.
If that were true, James suggested, it was possible that Smith fired first and Kauffeld justifiably returned fire.
Nobles testified Wednesday that he had confronted Kauffeld in his home earlier on the night that Smith was killed but did not mention that to deputies when they responded to the burglary call.
He testified that he initially wanted to handle the situation with Kauffeld by himself but called the sheriff's office later that night for insurance purposes after finding his glass door shattered.
He said that when he returned home from Clarksville earlier in the evening, he found the door to his mobile home ajar. He cursed loudly then entered and saw Kauffeld fleeing out the other door of the home.
Just outside the door, he said, he found a .22-caliber rifle and locked it in his home before driving off in search of Kauffeld.
He said the two had been fighting for the past few months over a woman, Nancy Deatherage. Deatherage testified that she was living with Nobles but had called Kauffeld on May 14, 2015, and complained to him that Nobles had hit her and asked him to come get her and her possessions. She said she moved in with Kauffeld.
When they arrived at Kauffeld's home, Deatherage said, Kauffeld told her he had to run an errand and would return in 30 minutes. He never returned.
Kauffeld went back to Nobles' home, broke in and took several items that James told jurors belonged to Deatherage so she wouldn't have an excuse to go back to Nobles' residence.
After Kauffeld fled from Nobles' home, Nobles said he drove to where Kauffeld had left his pickup about a quarter-mile away, slashed the front tires and waited for him to return so he could beat him up.
When Kauffeld did not show up after 30 to 45 minutes, Nobles said he returned home to find his glass door smashed and the rifle and some other items gone.
That's when he called the sheriff's office, Nobles said. Contrary to what Prosecuting Attorney David Gibbons told jurors in his opening statement Tuesday, Nobles testified that he had told the deputies on the scene that Kauffeld was armed before they went to search for him.
Testimony resumes at 9 a.m. today.
State Desk on 05/26/2016