Published: July 13, 2007 12:15 am      

Shooter says he acted in self-defense

EBENSBURG — A Johnstown man on trial for first-degree murder testified that he shot in self-defense as another man rushed toward him armed with what appeared to be a sharp object.

“It appeared to be a knife. I pulled my gun out, and I fired one time,” Blake Donald told a Cambria County jury Thursday.

Donald, 20, and his mother, Jacqueline Webb, 42, also of Johnstown, are charged with murder in the Oct. 15 shooting death of Stephen “Travis” Smith.

The 25-year-old Smith was shot once in the chest in a second-floor stairwell at a ramshackle rooming house at 530 Horner St.

Insisting repeatedly that he did not intend to kill Smith, Donald testified, “I thought I was going to die when I saw the knife in his hand. He was angry. He had the intent to hurt me. I could see it in his face.”

Donald said he didn’t have time to run from where he was standing at the bottom of the stairway, said he didn’t have time to escape. “He was too close. I couldn’t have made it.”

Although a knife was not found at the scene, Webb testified that she saw Smith holding something at his side in his right hand. Stacey Dorsey, who had been with Smith that night, told police he had picked up a knife and took it with him when Webb knocked on the door.

Webb, who also testified Thursday in her own defense, said she did not intend to kill Smith when she returned to the rooming house with her son and another man.

Rather, she said, she intended to talk with Smith to “resolve a problem” he had with her son.

Webb said that, prior to the shooting, Smith had confronted her three times in the rooming house, shoving her against a wall and, at one point, using his forearm to choke her.

Webb described Smith as her drug dealer and a violent man who kept guns and knives in his room.

Webb said she had ended an intimate relationship with Smith months earlier, after he and her son had a run-in.

She said she wanted to iron things out with Smith because she wanted to be able to go to the rooming house to see friends without “getting roughed up because he has a problem with my son.”

Donald testified that the run-in occurred when he attempted to stop Smith, who was being chased by people contending he had just robbed them. Donald testified that Smith cut his arm during the incident. At the time, Donald and Smith were not acquainted.

Two days later, Donald testified, Smith met him as he was leaving his telemarketing job in Johnstown.

“He said he didn’t like what had happened. He pulled a gun and put it to my rib cage and said, ‘I don’t want more problems,’ ” Donald testified. “I said, ‘OK. I understand,’ and he walked away.”

On Thursday, Webb denied earlier witness testimony that she had urged her son to shoot Smith a second time. Donald said he didn’t hear his mother make such statements to him.

Donald admitted to putting the handgun to Smith’s head after Smith had collapsed in the stairway, but he said he did not fire again because “I realized he couldn’t hurt me.

“I seen he was dead. It shocked me. I picked up my glasses (which had fallen off when Smith fell against Donald) and ran.”

Donald said he ran to a cemetery area nearby, where he threw the gun into the river before going to a relative’s house. He was arrested the same day at his girlfriend’s Belmont Homes apartment.

Donald was asked why he had taken his gun with him to the rooming house if the purpose was only to talk with Smith.

“I was apprehensive because he had cut me before and had pulled a gun on me,” he said. “I wanted protection.”

The defense and prosecution are scheduled to give closing statements starting at 8:30 a.m. today.