Woman convicted of third-degree murder
After 4 1/2 hours of deliberations, a Fayette County jury convicted a Brownsville woman of third-degree murder Thursday in the stabbing death of her boyfriend. Dayna McMaster, 32, acknowledged that she stabbed Clarence Blair III, 46, on June 26, 2009, at a remote gas well in Redstone Township. She testified that she stabbed Blair to stop him from beating her, and feared he would kill her.
Prosecutors argued that McMaster committed premeditated murder, and had asked the 10-woman, two-man jury to return a first-degree murder verdict.
Before reaching their verdict, jurors asked President Judge Gerald R. Solomon to redefine involuntary and voluntary manslaughter, third-degree murder and malice.
District Attorney Jack R. Heneks argued in his closing that McMaster killed Blair with malice – which is necessary for a murder conviction.
“When Dayna McMaster put that knife under her body at the Bass residence, she intended to use that knife and she intended to use that knife against Mr. Blair that evening,” Heneks said, arguing that she should be convicted of murder.
He said she had the opportunity to get out of the truck and walk away when the couple stopped at a Cardale home shortly before the stabbing.
“That was her opportunity to leave, to retreat,” Heneks said.
He argued that testimony from two other prosecution witnesses showed that McMaster was the aggressor.
“She was the one out of control. She was the one who created this dispute. She was the one who got that knife. She was the one who used that knife,” Heneks said.
In his closing, defense attorney Jeremy Davis told jurors that McMaster never had an intent to kill Blair.
“She was defending herself. She thought she was going to die, so she pulled the knife to defend herself,” Davis said. “She acted not only as a reasonably prudent person would, but as a reasonably prudent battered person would.”
On June 26, Blair and Thomas McGee Jr. of Cardale picked her up in Uniontown after she was arrested for retail theft at Walmart, McMaster testified.
She said that Blair started hitting her on the truck ride home, punching her in the head and face.
McGee testified earlier in the week that it was McMaster who was the aggressor, jumping on Blair.
McMaster said that at some point, Blair pulled out his hunting knife, and told her she was going to die that night.
She told jurors that she wanted to run when she got to the home of Blair’s friends in Cardale, but felt Blair would stop her. Instead, McMaster testified, she took Blair’s knife and hid it under her leg.
Heneks again asked McMaster during cross-examination why she didn’t go inside the home.
“He has abused me in front of (them) on several occasions, and they didn’t do anything,” she testified.
The two drove to a remote gas well in Orient. There, McMaster testified Blair got out of the truck and came to the passenger side to choke her.
“I pulled the knife out. I thought that if I could stab him in the arm, I could run,” she testified, her voice wavering. “I felt that if he would see the knife, he would stop, but he didn’t.”
After she stabbed him, she testified she pulled the knife out. McMaster testified that Blair continued to hit her after that and she thought he was trying to snap her neck.
McMaster said Blair looked like he was going to pass out, and she saw the blood and got him into the truck to drive him to the hospital. They arrived at a the hospital around 10:40 p.m., and by 11:30 p.m., Blair was pronounced dead.
Dr. Antoinette Woods testified that she interviewed McMaster, and that she suffers from Battered Women’s Syndrome. Woods testified that it is not unusual for women who are in abusive relationships to call the police, and then not testify against the person who abused them and to stay with the abuser.
McMaster testified that Blair abused her throughout the course of their relationship, and on some occasions, she called police.
She told jurors that Blair once held a kitchen knife to her neck. She called police, who charged him with aggravated assault, but then refused to testify against him.
“Why didn’t you testify?” asked Davis.
“I love him,” she said.
Another time, McMaster said they were at Blair’s sister’s home and he started dragging her around outside the house by her hair.
“I seen she (Blair’s sister) gave him a 20 (dollar) piece of crack to stop abusing me that night,” McMaster testified.
McMaster also told the jury she would leave Blair, but they would always end up getting back together.
“When it was good, it was beautiful. When it was bad, it was bad,” she said of their relationship.
McMaster will be sentence on July 16, and can face a maximum sentence of 20 to 40 years in prison.