Published: April 08, 2008 10:32 pm         

Stewart’s third trial in beatings begins

Victim testifies he was assaulted after nixing drug deal

Eight people, including the victim and a co-defendant, were called to testify Tuesday in Raleigh County Circuit Court during the opening day of the trial of a 28-year-old Braxton County man charged with aggravated robbery, malicious wounding and conspiracy to commit malicious wounding.

This is the third trial for Shawn Stewart, who was previously found guilty of two counts of conspiracy to commit malicious wounding and one count of malicious wounding stemming from two of three beatings that took place in late 2003 and early 2004.

Donald Mabes took the stand and recounted his recollection of the events of Dec. 30, 2003, when he was allegedly beaten and robbed by Stewart in the E Street home of a friend Mabes said he had known most of his life.

Mabes told the court he had driven the friend, Darrell Cadle Sr., to Birch River earlier that day so he could sell ginseng.

It was when he arrived back at Cadle’s E Street residence that he says the trouble began.

According to Mabes, he agreed to drive Stewart, along with his girlfriend, Kristina Brooks, and Darrell Cadle Jr., who were all staying at the house, to the Red Brush area to buy drugs.

Mabes, who said he had never done drugs, said the four headed in that direction but turned around when he changed his mind. That’s when he said the beating began.

“Shawn and Darrell started beating me,” he said.

Mabes testified the beating began in the truck and continued inside the house, where his young children were waiting.

After being beaten and stomped, Mabes said, he made it Kanawha Street where someone called for an ambulance.

Although Stewart’s attorney, D.J. Morgan, didn’t really question Mabes regarding the beating, he did take aim at his robbery claim, specifically pointing out inconsistencies in statements given to police.

Morgan pointed out Mabes did not accuse Stewart of robbing him in a statement recorded sometime around Jan. 8, 2004, by Beckley Police Detective Sgt. David Allard.

“In this interview, you never once implicate Shawn Stewart in the robbery,” he said.

During questioning from Morgan, Mabes, who twice asked to be excused, said he didn’t see Stewart take his approximately $50, but said he saw the defendant with his wallet.

“If I got your billfold and threw it in the floor and your money was missing, who would you think got your money?” Mabes asked. “He’s the one who had my wallet and my money disappeared.”

Assistant prosecutor Tom Truman pointed out that although Mabes did not implicate Stewart in the recorded statement, a Jan. 4, 2005, memo taken by Beckley Police Detective Cpl. Chuck Smith, who is now deceased, indicated Mabes said Stewart took $55 in cash from him.

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Brooks, who, like Darrell Cadle Jr., pleaded guilty to two counts of malicious wounding and one count of conspiracy and is serving five to 25 years, took the stand and gave her version of the events from that evening.

At the time of the incidents, Brooks, 23, of Mullens, said she was a “bad alcoholic” who drank from the time she woke up until she went to bed.

Brooks told the court she, Cadle, Stewart and Mabes, whom she had just met, had been drinking before the trip to Red Brush.

When Mabes changed his mind about purchasing drugs, Brooks said, she saw both Cadle and Stewart hit him once each inside the truck.

Back at the house, hearing raised voices, Brooks said she acted on her “natural instinct as a mother,” and grabbed Mabes’ “babies,” taking them to a bedroom to hide them from the “dangerous situation” she knew was occurring outside.

“My main focus was to keep those babies occupied,” she said, admitting she knew Mabes was in danger.

Brooks said she left the house when Stewart came to the bedroom door to get her.

In exiting the house, Truman pointed out, she would have passed Mabes, who was lying in the floor.

Showing her a picture of Mabes’ bloody and battered face, Truman asked her if that was the man she had seen that night.

“When I seen him he didn’t look like that,” she sobbed, turning her head from the photo.

In previous statements, Brooks told police she saw Stewart and Cadle beat Mabes and the other two victims. Tuesday, however, she denied seeing anyone hit Mabes except for the two hits inside the truck.

Brooks said she had lied since the incident occurred but was telling the truth Tuesday.

“I absolutely lied to you because I have been very bitter and angry at the defendant because I am in prison and away from my children,” she said. “I wanted to take it out on him and I felt like putting him in prison would be the only way, but that’s not the way God would expect for me to do it. I don’t want innocent blood on my hands.”

Raleigh County Sheriff’s Deputy Bobby Stump testified Brooks, who was in a holding cell Tuesday morning, shouted at Stewart as he passed by on his way to his own holding cell, telling him “she loved him and she had his back.”

Brooks denied that, however, saying she had told him she still loved him but never said she had his back.

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Among the state’s other witnesses was police Cpl. Will Reynolds, who responded to the call when Mabes was injured and also went to the E Street residence, along with Smith, later that night after receiving a tip that the suspects had returned.

Reynolds showed pictures of blood splattered and pooled in different areas of the house as well as on Stewart’s clothes and shoes.

Brian Simpson, a registered nurse in the emergency room at Raleigh General Hospital who cared for Mabes the night he was injured, also testified.

Simpson told the court of Mabes’ injuries, describing multiple facial lacerations and fractures, including fractures to both eye sockets on the inside and outside.

“The entire center of his face was just floating with no anchor point,” he said.

Mabes was transferred to Charleston Area Medical Center for reconstructive surgery.

The trial will resume today when the defense is expected to call its first witness.

— E-mail: mjames@register-herald.com