May 6, 2008 By Jennifer Harr 5 min read

A former resident of Hunters Ridge in Redstone Township testified Monday that criminal homicide defendant Charles Michael Green knocked on his door looking for the man he is accused of killing. James David Ulery, 28, now of Masontown said Michael James Watkins, 42, of Pittsburgh stayed at his 503 Hunters Ridge apartment in Fayette County several times over the six months they were friends. So on the afternoon of Aug. 20, 2007, when Watkins stopped and asked to use his restroom, Ulery said he let him in.

About 20 minutes later, Ulery testified that Green, 29, of Uniontown knocked on his door and asked for Watkins. Ulery testified he told Green he would send Watkins down when he was done, but did not let Green in because he did not know him.

About 10 minutes later, Ulery testified that he saw Green walking down the steps from his upstairs, holding a bloody knife. He said that he did not let Green into his home, but also testified that he left it unlocked.

When Green saw him, Ulery testified, “(Green) put the knife to my chest, and said he was going to kill me if I didn’t get me and my family out of there.”

Ulery also testified that Greene told him not to saying anything about what had happened. Although he did not go upstairs, Green said he woke up his wife, Tabitha, and then-5-year-old daughter, who were sleeping on a mattress in the living room.

When his daughter screamed, Ulery testified that Green ran from the house with the knife in his hand.

“We have to get out of here, or he’s going to kill us,” Ulery testified he told his wife.

Tabitha Ulery testified that when she woke up, Green was standing over her and her daughter. She testified he had a “big bloody knife” and blood on his clothes. When her husband told her Watkins was upstairs, Tabitha Ulery testified she ran upstairs.

“I didn’t believe him, I thought I was dreaming,” she testified.

But she looked into her daughter’s room and saw Watkins, bloody, lying across the bed. She also said there was blood on the window blinds, walls and all over the bed.

The Ulerys both testified they ran to the gate at Hunters Ridge, where James Ulery’s uncle was coming to pick him up. James Ulery said he used his uncle’s cell phone to call for help.

Verna Graham testified that Green came to the door of her Hunters Ridge home sometime that afternoon, knocking on her door “hard, like somebody’s chasing him.” Before she invited him, Graham testified that Green came into her home.

She said she asked him what he did, and when Green told her he had done nothing, she asked him to leave.

“By the way he knocked, I knew something happened,” she testified. “I didn’t want him in my apartment.”

State police Trooper Matthew Uram from the Belle Vernon barracks testified that he was the first responder to the scene.

After he checked the apartment to make sure no one was inside, Uram said medical personnel checked the home.

Medical personnel who responded to the scene indicated that Watkins was dead when they checked him just after 3 p.m.

As medical personnel waited for a deputy coroner, Uram testified he secured the scene, and stayed in the doorway of the apartment. About five or six minutes later, he testified, a man started walking toward the home with his hands in the air.

“I’m Charles Green. I hear you’re looking for me,” Uram quoted the man as saying.

Uram testified he ordered the man to the ground, and then handcuffed him. He said he read Green his rights, and was patting him down to check for weapons when additional police arrived on scene.

Under questioning from District Attorney Nancy D. Vernon, Uram testified that police had not yet started to look for Green.

In opening remarks, Vernon called Watkins’ death a “brutal slaying,” and told jurors that Watkins was stabbed in the chest, hitting his heart and lungs. She also said that Watkins had defensive wounds on his hands.

She told jurors that the stabbing allegedly occurred because Green had given Watkins money for marijuana the night before.

“You might not like that scenario,” she said, “but we will argue that’s no reason, and no justification for the taking of a human life.”

Assistant Public Defender Michael J. Garofalo, however, told jurors that there are no eyewitnesses to the stabbing. He also questioned whether a $30 drug deal would prompt someone to kill.

He told jurors that police were never able to recover the knife, or any bloody clothing. He also told the panel that there was no DNA match on any blood that connected Green to Watkins.

Green is also charged with intimidating witnesses after he allegedly came downstairs and threatened the occupants of the apartment where the stabbing occurred.

Testimony will continue this morning before Judge Steve P. Leskinen.

herald_standa477:

http://www.heraldstandard.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=19663124