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Jury reaches split decision in rock-beating case

By Susy Kelly skelly@heraldstandard.Com 4 min read

A Fayette County jury rendered a split verdict on Thursday in the case of a West Virginia man accused of striking a Rices Landing woman on the head repeatedly with a rock.

Franklin Millard Broyles, 43, of Maidsville, W.Va., was found not guilty of attempted homicide, but guilty of two counts of aggravated assault and simple assault.

Broyles was accused of attacking 26-year-old Nicole Stallard, who was found suffering from life-threatening head injuries at his Point Marion home on May 20, 2012.

Dr. Vincent Miele, a neurosurgeon at UPMC Passavant in Pittsburgh, testified via video deposition that he treated Stallard when she was brought to Ruby Memorial Hospital in Morgantown, W.Va., as a trauma patient.

“She was in serious, critical condition and in need of immediate surgery,” the doctor testified.

Stallard had a portion of her skull removed to accommodate the swelling of her brain, Miele told the jury.

“We thought she probably wasn’t going to survive,” said Miele.

Stallard testified on Wednesday that she and Broyles were close friends, and he wanted more from the relationship. She told the jury that she went on an all-terrain vehicle ride with him on May 18, 2012, and when she refused his offer to go away with him to Kentucky, Broyles hit her on the head with a baseball-sized rock at least three times.

According to Miele, Stallard had bruising both outside and below the layer of protective sheathing around her brain, as well as contusions within her brain.

Assistant District Attorney Meghann Mikluscak asked Miele his medical opinion as to how the injuries were caused.

“The injury was much more consistent with an assault or a high-speed motor vehicle accident than an ATV accident,” Miele testified.

On cross-examination by Broyles’ attorney, Jason Taylor, asked Miele is it was possible to get the type of injuries Stallard suffered from an ATV accident where the person was ejected and hit her or his head.

“Usually, with ATV accidents, there are lacerations,” Miele said, indicating that people usually slide or scrape against surfaces during the crash. “We didn’t see that in her.”

Taylor asked Miele to provide a time frame in which the injuries would have occurred.

“If this happened more than 24 hours (before she was brought to the hospital), she had a guardian angel,” Miele said. “She’s lucky to be alive.”

According to Stallard’s testimony, the injury would have happened four days before she was treated at Ruby Memorial, Taylor pointed out.

In his closing argument, Taylor referenced that inconsistency in the prosecution’s timeline of events, as well as inconsistencies in what Stallard told people happened. Taylor noted that Stallard said she was hit toward the back of her head, rather than the front left, as the doctor testified.

Taylor also referred the jury to Miele’s testimony that Stallard’s was a closed head injury, which he said refuted Stallard’s claim that when Broyles initially hit her, she could feel blood and part of her skull when she touched her head.

“There’s no way Nicole’s version of events could have medically happened,” Taylor told the jury.

Mikluscak reminded jurors, in her closing statement, that the commonwealth’s position was that, “This case was about obsession and it was about violence.”

She brought up testimony from Stallard’s sisters, Shannon and Brandi Stallard, that Broyles was fixated on Nicole Stallard, and that his anger was escalating over his unrequited feelings for her.

While some of Nicole Stallard’s testimony and statements to police appeared to be inconsistent, Mikluscak pointed out, one thing remained clear, which was that the victim maintained from the beginning that she was hit on the head with a rock.

“Yesterday, after all the progress she’s made and the hell she’s been through, she essentially told you the same thing,” the prosecutor said.

Mikluscak asked the jury to think about why, if Nicole Stallard suffered a head injury while she was with Broyles, would he take her to his home rather than to a hospital or to her family.

“His motive was to have Nicole all to himself, dead or alive,” Mikluscak said.

Outside the courtroom, Brandi Stallard put her arm around her sister Nicole Stallard and said, “She’s happy, she’s glad it’s over.”

“Now I don’t have to look over my shoulder any more,” said Nicole Stallard.

Mikluscak said she was satisfied with the verdict the jury rendered, and added she had hoped for guilty verdicts on all four counts.

Broyles, handcuffed and on his way to the Fayette County Prison to await sentencing, maintained his innocence.

He opted not to testify at trial, but afterwards said, “I got falsely accused for something I didn’t do.” He insisted he never touched Nicole Stallard.

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