Jul 8, 2010 By Jennifer Harr 3 min read

A Brownsville woman told state police that her boyfriend hit her several times hours before she stabbed him to death last summer, and called his death a “murder.” Trooper Louis J. Serafini testified in Fayette County Court on Wednesday that Dayna McMaster told him that she and Clarence Foster Blair III smoked crack cocaine together around noon June 26, 2009, near a natural gas well in Redstone Township. It was at that location that she stabbed him with a hunting knife later in the night.

“We were in Orient, where the murder happened,” Serafini testified McMaster told him during their interview, which started just after 4 a.m. June 27.

“Where the murder happened?” Serafini testified he asked her.

“Yeah,” the trooper said she replied.

McMaster, 33, also told police that she and Blair, 46, argued that day over him getting rid of her daughter’s cell phone, and said he hit her several times, Serafini testified.

The trooper testified that McMaster said she told Blair to get another cell phone for her daughter.

“That’s when he reached over, and as hard as he could, busted my mouth,” McMaster told police, according to Serafini’s testimony.

McMaster told police that she, Blair and Thomas McGee Jr. were in his truck heading from Uniontown to Cardale when he punched her twice in the face.

“He hit me so hard I seen white. My head hit off the side of the window,” Serafini testified McMaster said.

McGee, who testified Tuesday, said that it was McMaster who attacked Blair in the truck – and told the jury of 10 women and two men hearing the case that he never saw Blair hit her.

The trial recessed for the day before Serafini could testify about what McMaster said about the stabbing.

McMaster’s attorneys, Melinda Dellarose and Jeremy Davis, have said she does not dispute stabbing Blair. Rather, Dellarose told jurors, she stabbed Blair once in self-defense to stop him from attacking her sometime after 10 p.m., and then drove him to the emergency room for help.

Blair was pronounced dead at Uniontown Hospital around 11:30 p.m.

District Attorney Jack R. Heneks Jr. said during his opening that McMaster hid a hunting knife, and then attacked and killed Blair when they stopped at the gas well site.

Heneks said he will ask jurors to convict McMaster of first-degree murder, which means she premeditated killing Blair.

Jurors also heard testimony from forensic pathologist Dr. Cyril H. Wecht, who said that Blair died from blood loss due to a stab wound that hit his heart.

Heneks asked Wecht if Blair’s life could have been saved.

“In my opinion, this would’ve been a fatal wound unless he had been placed on an operating table in a couple minutes,” Wecht testified. “But after five or 10 minutes, I don’t believe his life could have been saved with the penetrating wound to the heart.”

He also told jurors that some of the abrasions to Blair’s hands appeared to be defensive wounds.

Jurors also heard testimony that both McMaster and Blair had drugs in their systems.

Wecht testified that Blair had “significantly high” levels of morphine and cocaine in his system that would have been taken within hours of his death.

Dr. Lee Blum of NMS Laboratories testified McMaster had methadone, Xanax and a cocaine derivative in her blood.

Testimony will continue this morning before President Judge Gerald R. Solomon.