Jury hears testimony in fatal stabbing
A Fayette County jury will be tasked with deciding what happened to prompt a Brownsville woman to stab her boyfriend in the heart last summer. District Attorney Jack R. Heneks Jr. told the panel Tuesday morning that Dayna McMaster, 33, hid a hunting knife from Clarence Foster Blair III, 46, and then stabbed him at a remote gas well location in Redstone Township on June 26.
But jurors also heard from defense attorney Melinda Dellarose, who said that McMaster hid the knife to keep it away from Blair, and only stabbed him to stop him from attacking her.
While Heneks said the crime was premeditated, and told jurors that is required for a first-degree murder conviction, Dellarose said that at the close of testimony she and co-counsel Jeremy Davis would ask them to acquit McMaster.
Charles Bower, 20, of Masontown testified that he was at a friend’s home in Cardale when a woman in a truck pulled up the evening of June 26, and asked him to call 911 because “someone was dying in the vehicle.”
Bower said a man inside the truck asked her a few times to get back into the truck, and said McMaster did, and then sped off.
Later, testimony indicated she drove him to Uniontown Hospital, where they arrived around 10:40 p.m. Blair was pronounced dead at 11:24 p.m.
Angel Nicole Bass, who called Blair “Uncle Duke,” testified that Blair and McMaster came to her house in Cardale around 9 p.m. and were fighting.
Bass testified that McMaster was very angry.
“I’ve never seen her that out of her mind, or that upset,” Bass testified.
Before they left, Bass said that McMaster said she was “going to end up killing this (expletive) tonight.”
Thomas McGee of Cardale testified that he was with the two earlier in the day when Blair picked McMaster up at the state police station in Uniontown. She had been arrested for retail theft after she stole items from Walmart, intending to sell them for crack cocaine, Heneks said in his opening statement.
McGee testified that the two fought verbally on the truck ride from Uniontown to Cardale, and said that he never saw Blair hit McMaster, but did see her jump on and hit him.
At one point, Blair stopped the truck and told McMaster to get out, McGee testified. Blair started to drive off, and then stopped and let McMaster get back in, McGee said.
When she did, she jumped on Blair, McGee said.
“I asked to stop. My baby was in the truck, and if we crashed, I was going to be real mad,” he testified.
Trooper Louis J. Serafini testified that when he questioned McMaster around 4 a.m., she had scratches and marks on her neck and shoulders.
Jurors will hear additional testimony today in the case.