Witness recounts slaying details in retrial
A former resident of a Redstone Township housing development testified Monday that Charles Green came from his upstairs carrying a bloody knife, threatening to kill him and his family if they told anyone. James Ulery, 28, now of Masontown, said Green, 29, of Uniontown came to his door in the early afternoon of Aug. 20, 2007, and asked to speak to Michael Watkins.
Ulery testified in Fayette County Court that Watkins, 42, of Pittsburgh came to his former home at 503 Hunters Ridge about 20 to 30 minutes earlier asking to use his bathroom. When Green asked for Watkins, Ulery testified he told Green he would send him down when he was done, shut the door and went to make tea in the kitchen.
About 10 minutes later, Ulery testified that he walked back into his living room and saw Green walking down the steps holding a 12-inch knife with blood on the lower half of the blade.
Ulery testified that Green held the tip of the knife of his chest.
“He told me to get my family out and don’t tell anyone or he was going to kill us,” Ulery told the eight-man, four-woman jury.
Ulery said he woke up his wife, Tabitha, and their then-5-year-old daughter also woke up and screamed. Green ran from the home, Ulery testified.
When Tabitha Ulery went upstairs, she testified that she saw Watkins lying in her daughter’s room, covered in blood.
She told jurors there was blood “everywhere,” and when he did not respond as she shouted his name, Tabitha Ulery testified she believed he was dead.
Green is charged with criminal homicide in Watkins’ death, and with counts of intimidation of a witness for allegedly threatening the Ulerys.
This is the second time he is on trial on those charges. In May, a jury heard the case and could not reach a unanimous decision. A judge in that case declared a mistrial.
State police Trooper Matthew Uram testified that he was the first on the scene from the Belle Vernon barracks, and after securing the scene, heard someone outside yelling, “I’m Charles Green, I hear you’re looking for me.”
Uram testified he went outside, and ordered Green to the ground. He took Green into custody as criminal investigators arrived to the scene.
When he spoke to police, Green did not deny being at the apartment, but said when he saw Watkins he was “gurgling” and already had been stabbed.
Watkins was stabbed six times over $30 in marijuana he failed to deliver to Green, prosecutors allege.
Assistant District Attorney Michelle L. Kelley told jurors that the case was circumstantial, but said the evidence presented would come together to show that Green killed Watkins.
She also asked jurors to set aside any television or crime novel expectations about how the trial would run, noting that there is no murder weapon, DNA or eyewitnesses to the crime.
“When you put that picture together, what you will see is a picture of what transpired … and that’s why the defendant sits before you charged,” Kelley said.
But the picture has “holes” in it, said Assistant Public Defender Michael J. Garofalo.
In addition to the lack of a murder weapon and DNA connecting Green to Watkins, Garofalo also said there was no blood found on Green’s clothes when he turned himself in to police less than an hour after they arrived on scene. Garofalo also noted that there were no fingerprints taken in the bedroom where police alleged Green brutally stabbed Watkins.
“There are going to be a lot of holes in this picture,” he told the jury.
Garofalo also explained what seemed a damning admission by Green to police. Prosecutors argued that “I completed my mission” was about Watkins’ stabbing, but Garofalo said it was taken out of context.
He told jurors that Green made that statement to police after he invoked his right to an attorney during questioning.
Judge Steve P. Leskinen is presiding over the trial, and testimony will pick up this morning.
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