North Union Twp. woman to face trial on murder charges
Kim Lee Straughters cried and barely maintained her composure as her aunt and uncle recounted Thursday what happened May 7, the day she allegedly stabbed and killed her father, Robert Elwood Davis, 53, on the front porch of the family’s North Union Township home. At one point during a preliminary hearing Thursday while her attorney, Duke George of New Kensington, was cross-examining her aunt Pamela Davis, the victim’s younger sister, Straughters burst into tears, leading other family members and friends who attended the hearing to cry out loud with her.
It led District Justice Deberah Kula to recess the hearing briefly.
“Grandma, I’m sorry,” Straughters said to her grandmother, Henrietta Davis, the victim’s mother.
Kula called for another brief recess for the same reason later in the proceeding when George was questioning Straughters’ uncle Ruben Davis, the victim’s younger brother.
Straughters said she loved each of her family members, and they told her that they loved her, as the family tragedy was aired in the courtroom.
The hearing concluded with Kula ordering Straughters, 29, of Irwin, held for court on a charge of criminal homicide. She was returned to the county prison without bail.
The case against her will be forwarded to county court, where she either will have a trial or accept a plea bargain. Her formal arraignment was scheduled for Jan. 20 in the county courthouse.
Under questioning from Assistant District Attorney Phyllis Jin, Pamela Davis said Straughters arrived at the family’s 355 Cleveland Ave. Extension home at 8 a.m. and woke her up.
She said she then heard some rumbling, looked and saw that Straughters had her father in a headlock, hit him and tackled him in a hallway.
After they separated, he entered the kitchen and began drinking a beer, she testified. Pamela Davis said Straughters entered the kitchen and started calling her father names. He then walked out to the porch, sat down and was joined by Ruben Davis, she said.
Straughters also went out to the porch, told her father she loved him and started using foul language toward him before she went back inside, according to Pamela Davis.
Straughters then picked up the phone, called 9-1-1 and walked around with the phone, repeatedly saying, “He’s not going to do this to me anymore,” her aunt said.
Sitting inside with a clear view of the porch through a window, Pamela Davis said she saw Straughters stab her father in the neck with a knife.
“I looked out the window and she stuck the knife in his neck,” she testified.
She went outside as Ruben Davis grabbed the knife from Straughters.
“He took his last breath while I was standing there,” she said, adding that Straughters kept repeating, “I killed my daddy.”
During cross-examination, Pamela Davis said she never saw her brother hit Straughters.
She said Straughters threw a toaster oven at her father after he entered the kitchen, and he walked out to the porch after he blocked the toaster oven with his arm.
Saying that she did not know Straughters had a knife until she saw her stab Robert Davis, Pamela Davis testified that Straughters said, “Here, daddy,” just before she stabbed him.
Trooper Brian Mears testified that when he arrived at the scene, Straughters was handcuffed in a patrol car, and when he asked another trooper what happened, Straughters spontaneously said, “I killed my daddy.” Mears said she repeatedly yelled, “I killed my daddy. I stabbed my daddy.”
Under cross-examination, Mears said he noticed later on that Straughters had a swollen lip.
He was then given photographs that he said showed Straughters had what appeared to be a small cut on her upper lip, a small cut near one eye and possibly a bruise around her left eye.
In a statement she gave to police, Straughters said her father repeatedly beat her, but no other witnesses said her father struck her, Mears said.
Jin rested the prosecution’s case without calling Ruben Davis, who was sworn in and sequestered at the opening of the hearing, but George called him as a defense witness.
Davis said he was awakened that morning by the sound of Straughters harshly speaking to her grandmother.
He said he took Straughters outside to the porch where her father was sitting. She sat in his lap, hugged him and started swearing at him, he testified.
Ruben Davis said he and his brother each had a beer on the porch, and Straughters asked him if she could have one. He said he told her to look in her father’s room for one.
When she came back out on the porch and she said, “Here, daddy,” Ruben Davis thought she was handing her father a beer until blood started squirting on him, he testified.
“I said, ‘What the hell are you doing,'” Ruben Davis said, noting that he then took the knife from her. He said Straughters looked in her father’s face and said, “I’m killing you, daddy.”
“Blood was squirting all over my face, all over my body,” he said.
He demonstrated how he said his brother was sitting “helpless” with one hand on his wound and the other hand reaching forward.
Robert Davis was pronounced dead in Uniontown Hospital at 10:15 a.m.
After the hearing, Ruben Davis said the whole ordeal has been very difficult for the family.
He said he lost his brother and doesn’t know what will become of his niece.
“It’s a shame. It was terrible,” he said.