When Madison Campbell first opened a glass door to the lobby of the apartment building at 36 Pinehurst St., in Penacook Place, she did not see a knife in Daswan Jette’s hands.
What she saw instead was her then-boyfriend Sam Chase and friend Sabrina Galusha trying to get back a bag of marijuana, which Campbell said Jette had stolen moments earlier. At first, Galusha asked for Jette to hand the bag over, and then she reached outwardly toward his pant’s pocket for it.
It was then that Jette displayed a folding knife with a black handle and threatened the group of friends, Campbell recalled, noting that he had made “jabbing” motions toward them.
“When he put the knife on Sabrina’s arm,” Campbell testified late Wednesday, “I told him he’s a piece of (expletive) and he shouldn’t hurt women.”
Campbell spoke clearly and with confidence Wednesday as she recounted for jurors some of the final minutes of Galusha’s life on the night of May 30, 2017. But over the course of several hours Thursday, public defender Caroline Smith worked detail by detail through three interviews Campbell had agreed to with Concord police, repeatedly questioning her on certain inconsistencies and omissions in her statements.
One of the specifics they revisited multiple times is whether Jette had really held a knife to Galusha’s arm in the vestibule that night and, if so, why hadn’t Campbell told police about it.
Jette, now 23, is standing trial this week in Merrimack County Superior Court in Concord on first- and second-degree murder charges in connection with Galusha’s death following a drug deal that went awry at Penacook Place more than two years ago.
“You don’t say he had the knife to her arm,” Smith said to Campbell as they reviewed one of her interview transcripts in court. “You do say he’s getting physical with her but you don’t describe that.”
“Right,” Campbell replied.
During direct questioning by Senior Assistant Attorney General Ben Agati on Wednesday, Campbell said she clearly remembers Jette holding the knife to Galusha’s arm, but never cutting her during the argument in the vestibule.
Campbell said at some point thereafter, Chase held Jette up against a wall in the vestibule and Galusha was able to take the knife from Jette. She noted that she held Jette’s other hand at the same time so Galusha could get the knife away safely.
Galusha then folded up the knife, but what she did with it after that is unclear.
On Thursday, Smith asked whether Campbell knew that Chase had told police he saw Jette put a knife to Galusha’s arm. Campbell said she couldn’t recall, while standing by her statement that she saw it.
Smith said police had put Chase and Campbell – who were living at the time in a tent along the Contoocook River – up in a hotel room on the night of Galusha’s death. She questioned whether Chase and Campbell might have talked after their interviews with police that night, and if Campbell’s memory was now influenced by that conversation.
Campbell also told jurors that she had viewed Facebook posts about the murder and previously attended a hearing soon after Jette’s arrest, where she heard about the evidence obtained by police.
“Sabrina was stabbed in the vestibule, right?” Smith asked Campbell.
“I was not sure of that,” Campbell said Thursday.
She later explained that the only time she saw Galusha get stabbed was in the backseat of the vehicle the group of friends had taken to Penacook Place that night to sell Jette marijuana. She said it was there that Jette reached into the car and made several punching motions toward Galusha who simultaneously yelled, “He (explitive) stabbed me.”
When combing the scene for evidence that night and into the early-morning hours of May 31, 2017, investigators found blood splatter in the vestibule which later tested positive for Galusha’s DNA.
An autopsy performed by the medical examiner’s office revealed that Galusha suffered three stab wounds: one to the inside of her right knee, a second to her buttock and a third to her chest. The chest wound was fatal as the knife penetrated Galusha’s heart.
A medical examiner’s report detailing Galusha’s wounds has not yet gone before jurors.
During opening statements of the trial Tuesday, defense attorneys tried to cast doubt in jurors’ minds about where at Penacook Place – the vestibule or in the car – Galusha had been stabbed in the chest. Jette maintains he was acting in self-defense on the night of May 30, 2017, when he pulled out a knife in the vestibule, and that he never pursued Galusha or her friends back to their vehicle that night.
Annika Tidd Civetti, who drove her mother’s Chevy Cruze to the scene, and Campbell have both testified that Jette stabbed Galusha in the backseat following the confrontation in the vestibule. Chase has yet to take the stand.
Campbell and Civetti also told jurors that they initially lied to police officers about what had brought them to Penacook Place because they didn’t want anyone to find out they’d be in on a drug deal. They said they later came clean, but that the initial lies were the reason for their inconsistent statements to authorities.
Agati re-questioned Campbell on Thursday afternoon and asked about some of the inconsistencies Jette’s public defender Caroline Smith had highlighted over the course of hours. Campbell said she wasn’t intentionally changing aspects of her story now but simply trying to provide the most accurate descriptions she could based on what she remembers at this point in time.
She said she ultimately fled the vestibule after Galusha had taken the knife because she felt threatened by Jette.
“We got the weapon away from (Jette) but Sam told us to get out,” Campbell said.
She noted that Galusha was close behind her on the way back to Civetti’s car.
“After Sabrina closed the knife did she say anything?” Agati asked Campbell on Thursday.
“That we weren’t trying to fight (him),” Campbell replied.
Testimony in the trial will continue Friday in Concord.