While prosecutors painted accused murderer Daswan Jette as an angry man who chose to kill a 23-year-old woman he’d never met, defense attorneys told jurors that it was Jette who felt attacked on the night of May 30, 2017, and brandished a knife in self-defense.
Both sides presented conflicting accounts in opening statements Tuesday about the circumstances that led to the fatal stabbing of Sabrina Galusha at the Penacook Place Apartments – a location jurors visited before hearing any of the trial evidence.
Jette, now 23, was at the site visit, too, and returned to Penacook Place for the first time Tuesday since being charged in connection with Galusha’s death. He is on trial in Merrimack County Superior Court in Concord on charges of first- and second-degree murder.
During the course of the three-week trial, the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office will present evidence that it says will show Jette stabbed Galusha in the heart when she and her friends were trying to escape the apartment complex following a drug deal that hadn’t gone as planned.
But through his attorneys, Jette will attempt to cast doubt in jurors’ minds about what unfolded that night. Public defender Alexander Vitale said Tuesday that Jette never pursued Galusha and her friends back to their vehicle that night. In fact, he said, Jette didn’t even know anyone had been stabbed as he returned to his then-girlfriend’s apartment without the half-ounce of marijuana he had intended to buy from Sam Chase, one of Galusha’s friends.
“This is a case that is not about a robbery. This is not about a murder,” Vitale said. “This is a case of Daswan pulling out a knife to defend himself.
“You’ll learn that Sabrina was stabbed in the vestibule and not in the car,” he continued. “It happened when Daswan was defending himself by attackers and they had the upper hand.”
Vitale identified those “attackers” as Galusha and two friends, Chase and Madison Campbell.
The three friends, plus Annika Tidd, had shown up at Penacook Place on May 30, 2017, to sell marijuana to Jette, whom they didn’t know. It was supposed to be a simple deal, both sides said; however, they disagree about specifically what went wrong and how the night unfolded.
Vitale told jurors that Jette took out a scale to weigh the marijuana and, at the same time, his cell phone and money fell out of his pocket. He argued that Chase seized on the opportunity and stole the money and phone from Jette, which prompted Jette to run off with the marijuana to a vestibule in one of the apartment buildings where a further altercation ensued.
Conversely, Assistant New Hampshire Attorney General Nicole Clay said during her opening statements Tuesday that Jette made a series of conscious decisions that began with him choosing to rob Galusha and her friends.
“This isn’t a case of self-defense. This was not a misunderstanding, an unfortunate accident or a case of the defendant acting recklessly,” she said. “This case is a result of a series of choices.”
Clay said Jette chose not to pay for the marijuana, to run off with it into the lobby of his apartment building and to pull out a knife, which he then used to threaten Galusha who “dared to confront him and ask for her weed back.”
It was at that time that Jette stabbed Galusha in the buttock, prosecutors argue.
“When Sabrina managed to grab the weed back and disarm him, the defendant armed himself again and chased after her with a knife,” Clay said. “When Sabrina and her friends tried to drive away, he reached into the car and stabbed her in the heart.”
Tidd, Chase and Campbell had attempted to drive Galusha to Concord Hospital that night but her condition rapidly deteriorated, and so Tidd called 911, authorities said. At the direction of dispatchers, Tidd pulled over in the area of Swenson Granite on North State Street.
Concord police and fire responded to the call at about 8:40 p.m. They found Galusha, who was unresponsive, in the backseat of Tidd’s black Chevy Cruze. She was taken by ambulance the final few miles to the hospital but first responders were unable to save her life.
The state medical examiner’s office concluded following an autopsy that the chest wound penetrated Galusha’s heart.
For the first time Tuesday, jurors heard Tidd and Chase on that 911 call as they spoke to dispatchers and pleaded for assistance for Galusha, who they said had been stabbed by a stranger and was unconscious.
“We don’t know who he is,” Chase initially said of Jette.
He told dispatchers they had been in the area of Penacook Place “smoking a cigarette” when a man in his 20s approached them and demanded money.
Prosecutors told the juror Tuesday that Galusha’s friends did initially lie about the circumstances preceding the murder because they were scared and feared the consequences of being involved in a drug deal.
And they noted that Jette lied, too. At first, he told police he hadn’t left his apartment at all that night.
Concord police Detective Benjamin Mitchell, who was the first witness of the trial, was one of the officers who executed a search warrant of Jette’s residence in the early-morning hours of May 31, 2017, hours after Galusha’s death. He had also responded to Swenson Granite and tried to save Galusha’s life.
“She was slumped over and appeared to be lifeless,” Mitchell said of Galusha. “She was seated on the seat but her torso and her head were leaned to the left.
“I checked her for a pulse and I did not feel one,” he told Clay during a line of questioning.
With the help of another Concord officer, Mitchell removed Galusha from the Chevy Cruze and began performing CPR. But he said blood continued to spill from her chest wound and her pulse never returned.
He said he watched as Galusha was taken away in an ambulance and later heard that she had been pronounced dead at the hospital.
The murder trial will continue Wednesday in Merrimack County Superior Court.
(Alyssa Dandrea can be reached at 369-3319 or at adandrea@cmonitor.com.)